Between the Blade and the Heart

by Amanda Hocking

  “How does this not involve me?” I protested.

  “I’m the one that made a mistake, so I’m the one fixing it,” she replied coolly. “You don’t have anything to do with it.”

  “Yeah, sure, you’re right.” I took off my messenger bag from where it hung looped across my chest and walked over to the couch, where I sat down heavily beside Asher. “I almost got killed last night, but you’re right. None of this concerns me.”

  Marlow tilted her head and narrowed her eyes slightly. “What do you mean, you almost got killed?”

  “Remember how you were too busy this weekend to help me do a job I’m not ready to do yet?” I clunked my heavy moto boot on her battered coffee table and pulled my skirt to the side to show my leg. Oona had rebandaged it this morning, but it was still bleeding through. My skin above and below it was dark purple from bruising. “Well, I went to take care of it myself, and the Jorogumo almost got the best of me.”

  My mother looked at my wound and exhaled wearily. “By Odin’s ass, Malin, you should’ve been able to handle that yourself.”

  I dropped my skirt and tried to ignore the sting I felt in my chest. Asher had gasped when he saw my leg, and he stared at me with wide eyes. Marlow had hardly reacted at all.

  I wanted to scream at her, demanding to know how she could take pity on some condemned angel like Tamerlane Fayette but she couldn’t manage to care at all about her own daughter.

  But I didn’t. Instead I just said, “The Jorogumo was stronger than it should’ve been. The poison wasn’t supposed to affect me, but it nearly killed me.”

  “Are you okay?” Asher asked. His body tilted toward me, and his voice was low with concern.

  “Yeah, I’ll live.” I forced a reassuring smile at him. “Thanks.”

  “It didn’t kill you, and you need to learn to fight better,” Marlow interjected.

  “No, Marlow, you’re not listening. Quinn was there—” I began to argue, but my mother cut me off.

  “Quinn Devane?” She snorted. “Since when did she become an expert on all things Valkyrie?”

  “At this point, I honestly feel like she knows more than you,” I replied defiantly.

  Marlow narrowed her eyes. She’d been about to drink from her mug, but she stopped after I mouthed off, her lips hovering a centimeter above her coffee. “Don’t even—”

  “I mean,” I cut her off, “she does know enough to always kill her assignments.”

  “This is exactly why I didn’t invite you over here.” Marlow set down her coffee on the stone end table, and opened the wooden humidor resting on it, pulling out a slender cigarillo wrapped in dark brown leaves. “I knew you’d just hold that over me.”

  “Marlow!” I shouted in exasperation. “I am not browbeating you! I am trying to tell you what’s going on and ask for your help.”

  She scoffed as she lit her cigarillo. Then she took a long drag from it, before licking her lips and eyeing me. “What could you possibly need my help with?”

  “Figuring out what’s going on,” I replied simply.

  “What’s going on is that I need to finish this shit with Tamerlane so he stops wreaking havoc on the world and Asher can get some closure,” Marlow said. “That’s plenty, isn’t it?”

  I pursed my lips and nodded. “Yeah, that’s plenty.”

  She cleared her throat. “Now, as I was telling Asher before you interrupted us, I have a contact. She’s always made it a point to know everything about everything. I reached out to her last night, and she said she’d be willing to meet with us.”

  “Does she know anything about Tamerlane Fayette?” Asher asked.

  “I didn’t ask her anything directly yet,” Marlow said. “I didn’t want to set off any alarms. But if Tamerlane is still alive somewhere, she’ll know about him.”

  “How can you be so sure?” I pressed.

  “It’s what she does. She’s over six hundred years old, and she’s managed to accumulate a lot of knowledge and a lot of friends in that time,” she explained.

  “Six hundred?” I asked. Most of the assignments had been for immortals that were only a couple hundred years old. I’d never even met anyone over four hundred years old. “Why hasn’t she died?”

  “She just hasn’t been chosen to return yet.” Marlow shrugged and cast her annoyed gaze toward her window, which was mostly blocked by her boxes. “Now, with the ridiculous Feast of the Dead today, traffic is going to be murder, so we should get going if we want to meet with her before the sun sets.”

  “Is that a stipulation?” Asher asked.

  “It’s what she requested,” Marlow replied simply.

  “Who is this magical all-knowing person?” I asked.

  “Cecily Stavros. She’s a gorgon,” she replied as if meeting with a gorgon were no big thing, and then she stood up. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to go to the bathroom, and then we can head out.”

  Marlow took her cigarillo with her when she went into the restroom, but the cloud of clove-scented smoke lingered behind. Asher and I sat in the dimly lit living room as silence enveloped us.

  He leaned in closer to me, so his knee brushed up against mine, and in a low, conspiratorial tone he said, “I don’t want to sound rude, but your mother is kind of a bitch sometimes.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, she certainly is.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  Marlow locked up her car, then started walking. The sidewalk was crowded and cluttered with decorations and garbage, but she kept clomping on ahead, not waiting for either Asher or myself.

  “Now, she doesn’t know I’m bringing the two of you,” Marlow said, once we’d scrambled to catch up to her ridiculous fast pace. “So don’t say too much or you’ll freak her out. She doesn’t like visitors.”

  “Then how does she find everything out?” I asked.

  Marlow waved me off. “It’s not my business how she knows her business. I just know that she’s helped me track down many of my trickier assignments.”

  “I thought you hadn’t talked to her in a while,” Asher said.

  “It’s been over ten years,” Marlow admitted.

  “Why has it been so long?” I asked. “If she was so helpful in the past.”

  “We had a falling-out,” Marlow replied vaguely, and then she stopped so short, I almost ran into her. “We’re here. Well, she lives down there.”

  She pointed to the narrow stairwell to her left. It was dark and dank, running so deep underground I thought it might lead us to the sewer. Leaves and trash had piled up at the bottom, blanketing the concrete in front of a keyhole doorway.

  “Have either of you ever met a gorgon before?” Marlow asked, turning back to look at Asher and me.

  I shook my head, while Asher replied, “I’ve seen pictures of them.”

  “She won’t turn you to stone,” Marlow prepped us. “I mean, she can if she wants to, but it doesn’t just happen automatically. But don’t look directly at the snakes. It’s rude.”

  I was about to ask if there was anything we should know about Cecily Stavros specifically, but Marlow had turned and was already bounding down the steps. Asher and I waited politely in the darkness behind her as she knocked.

  It was a few minutes before the door finally creaked open. Her hand on the doorframe was the first thing I saw. Long red fingernails and pale skin with a few iridescent green scales trailing down the back of her hand to underneath her satin dressing gown.

  Then her face slowly materialized in the gap from the open door. At first she appeared to be a woman in her sixties—an admittedly attractive woman in her sixties, but on the older side nonetheless. Her skin looked soft and smooth, though wrinkled, with more of the green scales trailing around her hairline and down her neck toward her décolletage.

  Her hair was beautiful golden waves, and intertwined with it were five living, breathing snakes. They grew out from her scalp and danced around her head like a halo. The snakes leaned out farther than her, their tongues flitting out, an
d the light from above the stairwell shimmered off their scales.

  “It’s been a long time,” Cecily said, and her eyes—brilliant green, matching the snakes—were locked on my mother. Her lips twisted into a strange smile.

  “It has,” Marlow agreed, returning her own uneasy smile.

  “You killed my sister,” Cecily told my mother.

  I sensed Asher’s posture grow more rigid, as if readying himself to spring into action if necessary. He was beside me, but he took a half step forward, almost as if to protect me. Which was silly, because I was far more equipped to battle something like a gorgon. Instinctively, I reached for my hip, but I’d left Sigrún at home. The sword was useless when I wasn’t on an assignment, anyway, but it gave me comfort just touching it and knowing it was there.

  “I did,” Marlow admitted calmly. “I was only doing my job. It’s not me who decides who lives or who dies.”

  The peculiar smile remained fixed on Cecily’s face as she stared up at Marlow. “Just following orders, were you?” she asked, and Marlow nodded. “I’ve heard that excuse to explain away all kinds of evil acts in this world.”

  “I don’t expect it to explain away anything I’ve done,” Marlow said. “I’m only telling you that it wasn’t personal.”

  “Well, if you had known Calixta, it would’ve been personal,” Cecily said with a light laugh. “I hated my sister, and I’m glad she’s dead.” The gorgon stepped back and opened the door wider. “Come on in.”

  Immediately inside the door was a small foyer that looked about as dark and dank as the stairwell around us, but when Cecily opened the door beyond that, it was a totally different story.

  Brightly lit by an opulent chandelier, everything was white marble with gold embellishments and crystals everywhere. Huge mirrors with ornate bronze frames hung on the walls. Every piece of furniture—from the flared bench by the door to the mirrored sideboard cabinet—was all glamorously art deco.

  Cecily led the way through the surprisingly spacious apartment, her long blush pink dressing gown flowing on the marble floors behind her, and went down a few steps into her sunken living room. She sat on a sofa near a baby grand piano and gestured widely to the room.

  “Please, sit,” she said, lounging back on the sofa.

  In the center of the room was a large glass coffee table sitting atop a white fur rug, and Marlow sat down on the tufted ottoman beside it. I decided on the velvet settee, and Asher sat down beside me, so close our legs touched when he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his legs. Sitting across from Cecily like this, with Asher at my side, I felt a bit like an uneasy teenager being introduced to her new boyfriend’s disapproving parents.

  “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your guests?” Cecily purred as she lounged back on the sofa, and her gaze lingered on Asher.

  “This is my daughter Malin and her friend Asher.” Marlow gestured to us.

  “And I am Cecily Stavros, one of your mother’s oldest and dearest friends,” she said, laughing lightly. She rested her head on her arm, and a snake coiled around her wrist. “I understand you’ve come here asking for a favor.”

  “It’s not a favor, exactly—” Marlow started to explain, but Cecily cut straight through the bullshit.

  A snake in her hair began to hiss, and Cecily held up her hand to silence it. She asked, “Do you want something from me, or did you just come for a friendly chat?”

  Marlow sat up straighter. “We only wanted information.”

  Cecily clicked her tongue, then narrowed her eyes. “And what shall I get in return?”

  “What do you want?” Marlow asked.

  “I want you to tell me when I’ll die.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  Marlow took a deep breath, looking the gorgon directly in the face, and unemotionally answered, “I don’t know. I don’t know until the name shows up on my orders.”

  Cecily got up, walking across the room to a gold and glass serving cart. “But certainly my time must be up soon.” She looked back over her shoulder at Marlow. “I can’t be the only one that they allow to live forever.”

  She began pouring herself a drink, a dusty pink liquid from a lavish decanter, into a highball glass. From a small bowl she plucked two small globes that looked like ice cubes, but when she dropped them in her glass, they fizzed and bubbled.

  “The math of the gods is a mystery to all of us,” Marlow said simply.

  “So what do you have to offer me?” Cecily asked. She walked past me and Asher on her way back to the sofa, and she paused in front of Asher to run her hand underneath her chin. “Did you bring me this delicious young man?”

  All the snakes in her hair leered toward him, and he continued to stare at her impassively. But a small tick in his jaw made me suspect that it was taking a great deal of fortitude to keep from pulling back from her.

  “I’m here because the information is of great benefit to me,” Asher said.

  Cecily threw back her head and laughed—a cheerful cackling sound—and then she strode back to return to her spot lounging on the sofa. “Don’t be so serious, my dear boy. I’m only teasing.”

  “He’s actually the reason I’m here,” Marlow interjected, her voice sounding light, probably because Cecily seemed to have taken a liking to Asher.

  His gaze turned stormy as he rested his blue eyes on my mother. “Not to argue semantics, but the reason we’re here is actually because of you.”

  “Oh, there seems to be contention in the group.” Cecily’s eyes bounced excitedly between Marlow and Asher, and one of her snakes dipped its head into her glass, drinking. “Do tell all the juicy details.”

  “There isn’t much to tell,” Marlow replied, casting an irritated glare toward Asher.

  “We’re looking for the man that killed Asher’s mother,” I interjected, because I feared they would go around and around like this all afternoon. “Tamerlane Fayette.”

  Cecily tilted her head and sipped from her drink. “Name doesn’t ring a bell. I’ve always been better with faces, anyway.”

  I pulled my phone from my messenger bag and quickly scrolled through until I found the picture of Tamerlane I’d saved to it. Then I walked over to her. Cecily touched the phone, moving it so she could get a better look, but she just shook her head.

  “This isn’t enough. I’ll need more. Is there anything else you can tell me about him?”

  Asher looked over at Marlow, and when she didn’t say anything, he cleared his throat and said, “He’s supposed to be dead.”

  Cecily’s eyes widened with glee and her smile grew so wide, it looked painful. I don’t know if I’d ever seen anyone quite as happy as she looked just then.

  “Asher,” Marlow hissed, with fury in her eyes. If she were any closer to him, she would’ve smacked him across the head, something I’d experienced firsthand plenty of times.

  Asher shrugged. “It’s the only other thing we really know about him.”

  “Did you let someone slip away, Marlow?” Cecily wagged her finger. “You dirty bird.”

  “It’s a complicated issue, and I would like it if you could keep it between us,” Marlow said.

  “What’s a little secret between old friends?” Cecily intimated as she took another drink.

  Marlow smiled thinly. “Thank you.”

  “But now that you mention it, I have heard rumors about draugrs,” Cecily said, and when Asher looked quizzical, she followed up with, “The undead.”

  Asher’s brow furrowed. “You mean like a zombie or a vampire?”

  “No. Not just immortals like vampires, or myths like zombies. Draugrs are undead in that they are immortals who managed to escape their fate and skipped their date with a Valkyrie,” Cecily elaborated.

  “So it has happened before?” I asked.

  “There’s talk of it from time to time, but most of the time it’s only gossip and urban legends.” Cecily waved her hand and tossed her head. “I’ve been alive for over half a millennium, and I’ve onl
y met one draugr. He was a miserable old fool. Their time is up for a reason, and he eventually came to see me and asked me to turn him to stone. So I did.”

  She nodded toward a statue at the other end of the living room. He was marble perfection, with the chiseled physique of the gods, wearing only a loincloth, and with two large wings coming out of his back.

  “Do you know anything about draugrs nowadays?” I asked, and Asher continued staring back over his shoulder at the statue.

  “I had assumed it was nothing more than rumors or wishful thinking,” Cecily admitted. “We immortals are always looking for stories about cheating death and ways to extend our existence here on earth.”

  The thing about immortals was that they never really died. There were ways to destroy their earthly bodies—either with the blade of a Valkyrie, or in various difficult tasks, like a vampire with a stake to its chest or a silver bullet for a lobishman. But once their bodies were dead, they merely moved on to the next plane of their existence—down to Kurnugia.

  But Kurnugia was alleged to be dark and unpleasant, with several millennia’s worth of angry demons and devils jostling for control and tormenting everyone around them. Without the Vanir gods and the Valkyries to intervene, it was chaos, and death wasn’t an option anymore, so it was an endless nightmare.

  There was a bastion of peace—a solitary fortress known as Zianna that was ruled by angels and other divine immortals. But with the population of immortals growing for all eternity, it was legendary for being nearly impossible to gain entrance. There were far too many immortals, and even discounting the huge swath that were too cruel and malicious to ever be invited in, it would be impossible to house all the saintly beings.

  With the prospect of spending the rest of eternity in the cramped hell of Kurnugia, and with the doors of Zianna locked to them, most immortals preferred to live out their days on earth, where the sun was bright and pleasures were easy.

  “What rumors have you been hearing?” Marlow asked.

  “That there’s a whole trio of draugrs stalking about the city,” Cecily said.