Rune Awakening

by Genevra Black

  In the hallway outside their apartment, Mercy rummaged in her purse for her keys. Since she and Edie had met in high school, they’d been inseparable. They took care of each other. The thought that all that might end soon made Mercy’s chest physically ache. There had to be something she could do, if only Edie would just let her in. She’d always shared her problems before. What made this time so different?

  Mercy took a deep breath, ready to face whatever her friend had waiting for her this time, and entered the apartment.

  The moment she did, she could tell something was wrong.

  For one, there was a strange smell. Not easily identifiable, just … off. Something familiar, yet she couldn’t put a name to it. She took a step further into the apartment, and the briny scent tickled her nostrils, wafting into her nose. Her mouth went dry, her tongue salty. Her heart began to pump harder.

  She was almost certain, now, that someone had been in the apartment recently.

  Never mind what Edie was getting herself into; what had she gotten Mercy into? What if the intruder was still here? What if they were waiting just beyond the shadows in the hall, ready to strangle her or something?

  Muscles tense, Mercy swept the living room with her gaze, taking it in. Everything seemed to be in place—nothing stolen or even moved. Except….

  Down the darkened hall, she heard the squeal of wet skin sliding against the fiberglass bathtub.

  “Edie?” Mercy said, barely above speaking volume. She slowly turned toward the bathroom. From where she stood, she could see that the door was closed, but light was pouring out from the crack under the door. There was no doubt that someone was in there.

  She took a hesitant step forward.

  Squlch.

  The disgusting sound was enough to stop her in her tracks, but in the darkness she couldn’t see what she had stepped on. Slowly, she raised a shaking hand to take off her sunglasses.

  At first, it appeared she’d just stepped in a black blob, a darker piece of carpet with no discernible shape. But as her eyes adjusted to the light, horror mounted.

  It wasn’t just some spilled drink or tracked mud. It was a wet footprint, somehow wet enough to have saturated the carpet deeply. And it was enormous.

  If anyone was prepared to handle a home intruder, it was Mercy. But her self-defense training, her collection of knives, even her instinct to flee … it was as though it had all dropped out from under her. Her survival hind-brain had suddenly been liquidated, and with the way her head pounded, she thought it might start to melt out her ears at any second.

  She stood, frozen in fear, for what felt like hours but was probably more like a minute. Another squeak from the bathtub and a soft, strange trill—oddly melodious—prompted her forward despite terror batting its wings in her gut.

  She stepped into the hallway, and the darkness seemed to close behind her, shutting her in as if in a vault. Why it seemed so impenetrable, she had no idea—and though her breathing was shallow, she could no longer hear the sounds of traffic. It was like her fear had transported her to another place, somewhere unbearably private. Just her and whatever was behind the bathroom door.

  The doorknob was cool to the touch, slick with a layer of water and … strange, gritty slime. This close, she could hear water dripping from the faucet into the tub, a slow tick, and something shifting in the bath.

  Mercy stood as still as possible. She knocked, just to be sure it wasn’t Edie or her weird friend in there.

  Nothing.

  “I’m coming in!” she warned.

  Still nothing. Just more melodious gargling.

  She turned the knob and opened the door.

  The air inside the bathroom was thick with the briny smell. Mercy’s gaze touched every familiar thing in the room as she tried to ground herself. Toilet. Sink. Mirror. Cabinet. Towel. Perfume. She lowered her eyes, breath hitching.

  Three canisters of table salt lay discarded on the bathroom floor, their labels peeling, saturated with water.

  The tub was adjacent to where she was standing now, nestled into a corner, behind a wall. She felt as though her lungs were filling up with dread. It would drag her down and she would drown in her own panic.

  There was only one logical way to do this: quickly.

  Fear and anger mingled. Mercy was a patient person. But Edie had brought someone into her house, had denied her access to her own bathroom all day, had lied and brushed her off and abandoned her and left her to worry. No more. Whoever lay in the bathtub now was vulnerable—and they should feel vulnerable.

  My home. My life. No more bullshit.

  With renewed courage, she stomped around the corner to confront the intruder.

  There were no words.

  Her mind could hardly make sense of what she was seeing: a man, but not a man at all. Shimmering, iridescent teal skin with a labyrinth of onyx markings; long, sharp teeth and flared gills; enormous, blinking eyes the color and luster of obsidian.

  It was impossible; yet there it was.

  Her heart still thundered, but after a moment of silence between them, her fear subsided and gave way to a fluttering anxiety, a bone-deep understanding that she could never come back from this moment. There was her life before the fish man, and her life after. They were two very different lives, and one had just ended.

  The creature rose up, all seven feet of it, the webbed spines down its neck and back bristling. Its expression showed no fear, but no aggression either—actually, it seemed rather … transfixed. By Mercy.

  When she finally regained her ability to speak, she managed to creak out, “Are … you … one of Edie’s friends?”

  Ever since the wraiths had attacked her, Edie had avoided cutting through the playground to get to her apartment. Even looking at it gave her the shivers, but there was no time to be squeamish. Hoofing it around the corner, she immediately skirted past the line of sparse bushes and trees through which Marius and those creatures had torn only days ago.

  She looked up and down the street as she and Satara reached the other end of the playground safely, then headed toward the yard entrance. No Ghost parked on either side of the street or in the little alley.

  Where are you? Could Cal hear her? His emotions had quieted considerably on the other end of the connection, like trying to speak underwater, but she could still feel the dull throb of panic and confusion.

  “He’s not here,” Satara murmured before Edie could. Her fists were clenched, her shoulders stiff; she looked uncomfortable.

  “You okay?” Edie asked, only half-listening as she fished in her jacket pocket for her keys.

  “I didn’t think to grab a weapon from Astrid’s before we left. I should have.”

  She looked back as they reached the stoop that led to her back-hall apartment. “Don’t … don’t hurt Mercy. Whatever happens. Please.”

  Satara frowned. “Why would I do that? I’m not stupid.”

  It wasn’t a promise, but that would have to be good enough; they didn’t have time to stand there and argue. Edie loosed a puff of air as she pushed through the front door, rushing to the end of the hallway.

  From where she stood with the door closed, she could hear nothing but unintelligible, muffled noise. But when she opened it and ran in—

  Laughter. A light laugh that she immediately recognized as Mercy’s, and a lower, wheezy laugh. Light spilled from the living room into the entryway, and the smell of something warm and savory wafted from the kitchen, encircling Edie. Panicked, feverish still, she hurried into the living room and faced the laughter coming from the couch.

  Mercy sat there with her knees pulled up to her chest, her face flushed, and her hair and clothes damp in places. Fisk was adjacent, sitting on a towel and facing her with one leg tucked under himself. They both held mugs, though Fisk’s looked comically small in his large, webbed hands. Neither looked completely at ease with the other, but there they were: smiling, laughing, sharing a drink in the living room like he was a high school friend who ha
d awkwardly dropped by.

  The two turned their attention to Edie, and Fisk was the first to greet her: “Hail, Skald Edie!”

  “I … hi,” Edie mumbled, glancing between them. Oh, god, what was she supposed to say? It’s not what it looks like? I can explain? Whatever she said, what were the chances that Mercy would even believe her? Thanks to Cal—who they really needed to find next, if she managed to smooth this catastrophe over—everything was starting to fall apart. Including a friendship Edie had wanted so desperately to save.

  Mercy watched her with wide eyes. Her brows were knit, but she didn’t look … angry. Perplexed and overwhelmed, but not angry. When she spoke, her voice was raspy, her tone hesitant. “Hi….”

  “Hi.” Edie spat out a breath. “Looks like you’ve … made friends.”

  Satara stepped more fully into the room and fixed her gaze on Mercy.

  “Great,” Mercy said, struggling to smile. “More … people?”

  People. Well, maybe not in Fisk’s case.

  “What’s going on?” Mercy prompted, expression beginning to sour.

  “I….”

  Her friend wasn’t stupid; there was no lie Edie could tell her that would fool her into thinking Fisk was human and this was all some sort of misunderstanding. But Mercy also wasn’t fucking insane, so what were the chances that she would completely accept the truth?

  Hopelessly, Edie said, “You’ll never believe me.”

  Slowly, Mercy leaned forward and set her mug on the coffee table, and Fisk mirrored her action.

  She flashed him a nervous half-smile before looking back to Edie. “I, um … don’t know what to believe anymore. I didn’t want to believe that my best friend was … addicted to drugs or something—”

  “But—”

  “I didn’t want to believe that you would let someone kick me out of my own house. I just….” Mercy spread her hands. “I don’t want to believe that this—” A pause. “If this is what you were hiding from me, then I guess I—” She blinked and looked away. “Listen … I just want whatever you tell me to be the truth.”

  Edie’s vision blurred as her eyes welled, body beginning to shake.

  With a sigh, Mercy moved her mug and held her hands out for her. She took them, slowly easing herself down onto the coffee table across from her friend.

  “I wanted to tell you right away. God, I was so stupid. I should have told you.”

  “What happened?” Mercy wiped at her own eyes with the heel of her palm.

  “Hervey. He wasn’t sick. He died while you were away. I touched him, and it … brought him back to life. He was dead, and then I touched him, and he wasn’t dead anymore. Like a zombie.”

  She watched for Mercy’s reaction, but her friend’s expression of deep concern didn’t change, so she continued.

  She told Mercy everything: about the fish, the wraiths and Marius, how Cal had found her, her dad. She told her about the diner, and Astrid, going to Maine and meeting Satara. She told her about how she could feel the power in the roots of her teeth when she drew it in, and how she’d absorbed energy from the witchwolf’s blood, and about meeting vættir for the first time. She told her how Cal was missing and in danger, she was sure of it, and she had no idea what to do or where to start looking.

  She talked and talked until it hurt, completely forgetting that Fisk and Satara were there. Every doubt, every fear and raw nerve and injustice—she opened it and showed Mercy.

  When she finally stopped, her cheeks were clammy with residual tears. At some point, someone must have gone to the kitchen and turned off the oven, because she couldn’t smell the cooking food anymore. Edie rested her head in her hands, her mind barely keeping its head above water as wave after wave of anxiety washed over her. Should she have told? What would happen now? She had this horrible vision of Mercy saying she was completely crazy and leaving and never coming back.

  But when Mercy finally spoke, her voice was sure: “How can I help?”

  The revenant’s will would break soon. Everyone in the room could feel it.

  Though he slept, his mind still resisted Scarlet’s prodding, and it was becoming tiresome. Zaedicus had half a mind to shove her aside and try to open it up himself, though he’d loathe to have his mind touch the disgusting creature’s.

  But the revenant wouldn’t resist for very much longer. Scarlet assured him as much, her voice low as she concentrated: “The rotter’s mind is not easily opened. If I move too fast, I might leave behind a traceable scar. But once I ease a hole big enough….”

  The high-wight looked on as his new protégée carefully manipulated the web of the zombie’s memories, stripping each neuron and pinning it open like an animal dissected. Everything would go back to its place seamlessly once the vampire found what she wanted.

  Thralls were wonderful subjects when it came to extracting memories—they saw nearly everything their masters did—and it would be a small thing if Scarlet made a mistake and tore a hole in the zombie’s mind. As long as he remembered how to load that obnoxious shotgun of his, no one would notice.

  “Have you been able to extract anything intriguing yet?”

  Scarlet hummed, her fingers twitching as she held them over the revenant’s unconscious face. For a moment, she opened her eyes to glance in Zaedicus’s direction, shrugging one shoulder. “Nothing of consequence.” A red smirk spread across her face as she said it.

  He sighed from his high wingback chair and reached for his goblet. “Make haste, then. I’d like the information I’m looking for in my possession before the end of this decade, if you please.”

  The vampire’s smirk faded completely, her sickly-pale cheeks and forehead flushing weakly as she snapped her gaze back to Calcifer’s limp body.

  The more Zaedicus thought about his plan, the more he liked it. If only there was someone who could appreciate what he’d done. He planned to have her dig until she could tell him, second by second, exactly what the Reach had been doing these past few days. And, most importantly, where the hellerune was and what she was doing now, who she spoke to. If they were lucky, she would notice her revenant gone and come after him, right into their hands.

  The Reach was tedious, it was true—the Aurora, even more so. But the Wounded had made it well clear that securing the girl was to be Zaedicus’s primary objective.

  The thought of the angry red markings crawling up the man’s flesh, teeming across his skin like living things, made Zaedicus shiver. If he didn’t complete his task soon, the Wounded might decide to do it himself. He might decide that Zaedicus’s counsel and information were superfluous. Gods help whoever was superfluous, when that boy set his final plans in motion.

  “Lord Oldine.”

  The high-wight lifted his head, directing his focus back to Scarlet. “What is it?”

  “I’ve found a cluster of memories. Very recent, throbbing with anger. They must be what we’re looking for.”

  He sat straighter in his chair. “Good.” She would need time to drink of the memories and put them back where she had found them; even someone with her skill at memory leeching needed time. “I will leave you to your work.”

  The vampire was already extracting them. Her fingers worked carefully and delicately as she pulled the metaphysical string from the rotter’s skull: a thin, translucent purple thread, crimped and curled slightly as though it had been pulled from the edge of a thinning rug. Not at all the strong, ropy, bright blue strings he’d recently observed her extracting on other subjects.

  He frowned, pausing his exit. “What is that?”

  “Something of interest … I think.”

  “Is that so?”

  “To me, at least,” Scarlet conceded, never looking him in the eye but still smirking. “If you’d permit me, I’d like to dig a little deeper. I will bring you the memories you need.”

  Zaedicus could not keep the look of disgust from his face. She wanted to rifle through the mind of this maggot-filled behemoth, for fun? Put in her position
, he would only expose his mind to such filth for as long as he had to, and not a second longer. In the low light of the richly-furnished VIP room, he could see her black eyes glinting with excitement and pleasure.

  She was … mad. A freak. But, for now, useful.

  “Do as you will. But only after you’ve found what I asked for, and do not delay. You will regret it.”

  Clutching his goblet close to his chest, he exited the room.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Edie, Satara, and Mercy had arrived at Nocturnem to look for Cal again, maybe retrace their steps. They hadn’t had the chance to ask anything. The second they had walked in, Klein had sat them down to talk: rumor had it that Edie was related to Richard Holloway, and since it looked like she was hanging out with Norse warriors now—Satara didn’t exactly blend in to a crowd—she ought to know they were a vampire.

  To be honest, this revelation wasn’t all that surprising. Even before Edie had known this stuff existed, she’d always suspected something was up.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier,” Klein said as they poured Edie another glass of water from a large jug. “I can’t just go around telling my human friends, ‘Hey, I’m a vampire!’ ” With a sigh, they added, “That goes over about as well as you can expect. Talk about coming out, am I right?”

  “It’s … fine.”

  “But, hey, I didn’t know that you were Richard Holloway’s daughter, so I guess I wasn’t the only one keeping secrets.” They slipped her a sly smile.

  “It wasn’t me being clever,” Edie mumbled, taking a long sip of water. Her throat still burned from her confession to Mercy an hour earlier. “I didn’t know my dad was … you know.”

  “The Reacher,” Mercy finished, sipping her own martini.

  Edie looked over and nodded, and her best friend smiled proudly in response. Should have been her, she thought. In her position, Mercy would have learned everything with ease and remembered it all. And would probably look a lot better punching werewolves or whatever.