Blood Heir

by Ilona Andrews

  Still, trading proficiency in tech for one in magic was an easy choice at the time. I wanted to know where I came from and what my bloodline was capable of. I didn’t regret it, but I kept paying for it. It was still the wiser option. Magic would win, eventually.

  I sat quietly, enjoying not moving. The Honeycombers seemed in no hurry to fix their phone. They probably wouldn’t even notice for a few hours, until one of them picked up the phone and the line was dead.

  I needed a phone at my place. Phones worked for me about half of the time, and fifty percent was better than zero.

  I’d been in the city for over twenty-four hours and so far made no progress. I killed a lesser ma’avir, an insignificant victory. I found out that Pastor Haywood’s murder was connected to some unknown magical artifact. I killed the king of Honeycomb. None of that brought me closer to stopping Moloch.

  It felt as if a huge doom clock hung over my head, counting off each second.

  I leaned back. No, I couldn’t think like that. If I let myself run down that road, it would make me sloppy and desperate. I had to take my time, no matter how precious it was.

  A high-pitched shriek rolled through the Gap. Yep, a Stymphalian bird. Derek and I used to come here for the feathers once or twice a year. They made good knives that never needed sharpening. We’d pack a lunch and make a day of it, combing the Gap for the fallen feathers, then eating in one of the ruins just like this one.

  When we met, I was thirteen. He was eighteen. At that point, I’d only had one boyfriend in my short life, a slimy little weasel called Red who wanted to steal my magic. I thought he was amazing until he sold me out to the sea demons. Then Derek walked onto the scene, like a blazing sun, and the sad puddle of scum that was Red evaporated.

  If I closed my eyes, I could picture Derek sitting next to me, long legs stretched over the edge, scarred face turned up to the sun, his eyes shut.

  An eerie feeling washed over me. The tiny hairs on the back of my neck rose.

  Something was watching me from across the Gap. I scanned the ruins.

  Nothing.

  Whoever it was, they were well hidden. But they were there.

  The weight of the watcher’s gaze pressed on me. Like being sighted by a large predator ready to pounce. Every nerve in my body went on guard. I’d felt this before, when I’d arrived in the city. Something had watched me from the darkness as I rode across that bridge, something dangerous and frightening, and here it was again. Was it tracking me? Why?

  I raised my hand, smiled, and waved.

  That’s right. I know you’re there. Come out to play.

  Nothing. The ruins lay still.

  It was still there, watching me. All my instincts warned me it was a threat, the kind of threat I didn’t want to face with a busted leg. The simple animal part of me wanted to sit very still and hope that the thing that watched me would forget I was there. The crazy human part wanted to laugh in its face until the fear vanished in a flash of adrenaline.

  I made myself heave an exaggerated sigh, got up, and walked away, trying not to limp. I would come back to the Gap later. Hopefully magic would be up. If my silent watcher decided to approach for a closer look, they would be in for a fun surprise.

  Magic flooded the world in a blink. The pain in my thigh flashed with heat and melted into a tolerable hurt. I shifted on the chunk of the concrete and squinted at the setting sun. I had taken one of my aunt Elara’s herbal concoctions when I got home. The wave had activated its magic. If I managed not to strain the leg too much, I’d be almost at full power by tomorrow.

  After the Honeycomb Gap, I had gone to Jesus Junction and talked to the representatives of all three churches. None of them owned up to hiring Pastor Haywood or referring anyone to him in the past six months. Another dead end.

  Then I made my way to the municipal utility office, flashed my badge and a few hundred-dollar bills, and asked them to string a phone line to my house. The money gave them incentive and the badge offered a convenient excuse to drop everything else and bump me to the front of the line as law enforcement, so they sent a technician out with me despite the end of the business day. To say he wasn’t a fan of my house or the location would be an understatement, which was why I had to park myself outside between him and Unicorn Lane to officially “guard him from that cursed place.”

  The phone tech came striding up. He was short and broad, not fat but solid, with a mop of curly dark hair and olive skin, and he spoke with a mild accent. He might have been Moroccan, but I wasn’t sure and not rude enough to ask.

  “Well, I hooked it up, but we won’t know if it works until magic falls again.”

  Story of my life. When I needed magic to fight oversized Honeycombers, there was none to be had. But when I wanted a phone, suddenly I got all the magic ever.

  “Thanks,” I told him. “I’ll walk you out.”

  He eyed Unicorn Lane. About three blocks down, a former skyscraper had sprung a small waterfall. A bluish liquid, shimmering with swirls of lavender, spilled over the top of the ruin and slowly slid down its side in a three-foot-wide stream. It looked viscous.

  “Yeah,” the tech said. “I’ll get my tools. If it doesn’t work tomorrow, let us know.”

  The tech came back with his toolbox, and we walked down Peachtree Circle, heading south, toward civilization. My leg started hurting again. When I got home, I’d chant it into regeneration.

  Peachtree Circle ran into 15th street. It used to be a three-way intersection, and now it was more like a small roundabout, with the west end of 15th cut off by heaps of debris from fallen condominiums. The only way out was down the other end of 15th, southeast.

  A small shopping plaza had sprouted in the round intersection, only two shops: a pirogi stand manned by a smiling blond man and a convenience bus operated by an older, brown-skinned woman. The bus sold first-aid supplies and necessities: salt, toiletries, bandages, and so on. The pirogi stall sold delicious pirogi. I had sampled them this morning on the way to St. Luke’s. The intersection was (now) deserted, except for a lone beggar sitting on a ratty blanket by the debris.

  The tech waved at me and headed to his van, sitting by the pirogi stand. The beggar eyed me. Thin, old, with skin the color of dark chestnut creased by wrinkles, he hugged his knees on his blanket. His thin greasy hair hung in long strands over his face. His shoes, beat-up old boots, waited next to him. Grime stained his bare feet. He held himself in that careful way people do when moving meant pain.

  He looked so alone.

  Wind fanned me, bringing with it a hint of stale urine and the thick scent of a human body that hadn’t been washed for far too long.

  I walked up to the bus. The old lady was packing up for the day and pretended not to see me. I refused to move. Finally, she squinted at me. I pulled out forty bucks and put it on the counter. “Men’s socks and aspirin.”

  She looked past me at the beggar, then at me, sighed, put two pairs of socks on the fold-out shelf and added a small bottle of aspirin, twenty pills.

  “Thanks.” I took myself to the pirogi stall, bought the mushroom flavor—less chance of rat meat that way, and took it and my bus purchases over to the beggar.

  He shied away from me, scrambling backward. I left the stuff and twenty bucks on the edge of his blanket and walked away.

  By the time I got home, less than a mile away, my leg was in full protest mode. I walked into the house, locked the door behind me, and headed into my sanctuary. I reached the door and stopped.

  Someone was inside.

  I didn’t hear anyone, I didn’t see anyone, but I knew with absolute certainty that someone had broken into my home.

  I walked through the doorway, shut the door behind me, and slid the heavy bar in place, trapping the intruder inside with me.

  Quiet. Water gurgled in the stream bed. Plants spread their leaves, eager for the light.

  I cracked my knuckles.

  A dark shape lunged at me from the left, flying through the air as i
f he had wings. I sidestepped, gripping the intruder by the arm, and flipped him in midair, using my entire weight to drive him down. His back slapped the limestone. He flipped, legs over shoulders, bounced up like he was made of rubber, and crouched ten feet away, a big grin on his face.

  Damn it, Conlan. “You need to work on your pouncing.”

  Grey eyes laughed at me. “You need to work on your hearing. I stood five feet behind you for a whole minute before I walked into your house. You never turned around.”

  So he’d snuck in before the magic hit. Explained how he got past my wards. “Remind me, what did I say about not blowing my cover?”

  He shrugged. “Who’s here to see us? I don’t see anybody.” He made a show of looking through the plants. “Are you hiding witnesses in your pretty shrubs?”

  The problem with Conlan was that he had his father’s unshakeable confidence and his mother’s mouth. He was also Roland’s grandson. He’d spoken in complete sentences when he was eighteen months old, and he cracked complex incantations like they were sunflowers seeds when he was five. Math was child’s play, engineering was a fun amusement, chemistry was a hobby, and he took none of it seriously.

  His eyes shone. “Do you have food?”

  And he was a nine-year-old werelion. “Maybe.”

  I headed to my fridge. Tamyra Miller had stocked it to my specifications. Let’s see. What could I make that would be fast and filling?

  “Ham, chicken, venison?”

  “Yes!”

  “Normally I charge one hug per meal, but for you it’s free.”

  I wasn’t a fan of forcing hugs on children. If he wanted to give me a hug, he knew I would welcome one.

  He pretended to sigh, came over, and hugged me. He did it very carefully, using a fraction of his strength, aware that he was hugging a human. I’d finally seen my brother in person after eight long years.

  “Hey,” I told him.

  He grinned at me and broke free.

  I pulled out a chunk of salted smoked ham, wild mushrooms, four slices of bacon, and some cheddar and mozzarella, got a cutting board and my cleaver, and stocked the fire in the stove. Conlan settled into a chair by the kitchen table.

  “You really aren’t glad to see me?”

  “Of course I’m glad to see you. But now your scent is everywhere and Ascanio knows where I live.”

  Conlan wrinkled his face, showing me a hint of a fang.

  I set the pan onto the fire, tossed bacon into it, and started dicing ham into bite-sized chunks.

  Conlan spun around on his chair, leaned to the side until he was nearly horizontal, and plucked a metal sphere from the nearest pedestal. It was about the size of a basketball, a ball of delicate metal lace and gears. I had placed six of them around the sanctuary.

  Conlan tossed it up over his head, sending a spark of magic through it. The sphere unfolded into a monstrous metal spider above his head, razor mandibles out, metal claws poised for a kill. For a fraction of a second it hovered above him, looking ready to devour his head, then the tiny drop of magic powering it ran out, and it fell, rolling back into a ball. Conlan caught it with his other hand. The control required to achieve this would make the sages back at New Shinar giddy with joy. Conlan spun the sphere in his fingers and tossed it back up.

  Sphere, spider, sphere, spider, sphere…

  I finished with the ham, flipped the bacon, and moved on to slicing the mushrooms. “What’s the deal with you and Ascanio?”

  “I don’t like him.”

  I cut the cheese into thin slices. “Did he do something?”

  Conlan shrugged. “That’s not important.”

  “Okay, I’ll bite. What is important?”

  I took the bacon out, drained most of the fat into a jar, and tossed mushrooms and ham into the pan.

  “I want to help.”

  “Help with what?”

  “Help with the secret thing that you talk to grandfather about when I’m not there. The secret thing that makes you stay here and prevents you from coming home.”

  “Ah. That secret thing.”

  I took out six eggs, cracked them into the pan, and moved them back and forth with my spatula. Conlan, like his dad, couldn’t stand runny eggs. He’d complained about them before when discussing school meals. And like his dad and most shapeshifters, his tolerance for heat in his food was almost nonexistent. If I’d been cooking for me, I would’ve been throwing jalapenos into the pan.

  I salted the scramble and reached for the cheese.

  My cutting board wasn’t there. Conlan sat on the table, holding the cutting board with the neat stack of cheese slices out of my reach.

  “Really?”

  “You’re avoiding the answer.”

  “Give me the cheese and we’ll talk about it.”

  He handed the cheese over. I tossed it onto the eggs, stirred it a bit and took the pan off the fire. He watched me. I took a fork out of the drawer, added a big plate, slid the eggs and melted cheese onto it, and pushed it toward him.

  He tried it. “Tastes like Mom’s.”

  Well, of course. “Who do you think taught me to cook?”

  “Do you remember when I was seven and I had a problem with the druid clique at school?”

  “What about it?” Druids had a lot of magic that directly affected animals. He had been seven and the group of kids that tried to torment him were twice his age. He’d refused to tell Kate or Curran about it, and if he’d resorted to violence, he would’ve been expelled.

  “You remember what you said to me? You said, ‘You have to tell me these things. I’m your sister.’ And the next day, when we went on a lunch break, Roman was waiting for me in the yard in his black and silver robe. He had his staff with the bird head that screeched at people, and when I got near, it started purring. He gave me a big hug and announced he’d brought me pirogi his mother had specially made for me. We had lunch and talked about family and what to get people for Koliada and Christmas. Never had a problem after that.”

  Roman was a black volhv, a Slavic pagan priest. He served Chernobog, the god of decay, war, and darkness. All Neo-Pagans were taught from an early age about other Neo-Pagans, and Roman was officially listed in their registry under the heading of “Do not fuck with.” His mother, Evdokia, was one of the witches of the Witch Oracle. I took lessons from her when I was young, which was how Sienna and I became friends. Calling Roman for a minor favor was no trouble. The priest of the God of All Evil loved helping people. It was his chance to shine, and he made the most of it. Kate had done something similar for me when I was a teenager.

  “Your point?”

  He raised his head from the food. There was barely half left on his plate. “You have to tell me these things. I am your brother.”

  Aw.

  But he was only nine. The ma’avirim were dangerous as hell.

  Conlan leaned forward, his gaze unblinking and direct. “I’m not a baby.”

  It’s like he was telepathic sometimes.

  “You’re not a baby, but you often act like one. You don’t like to study, you don’t apply yourself, and you squeak by doing the bare minimum to keep Grandfather from losing his temper…”

  Conlan raised his hand. Claws burst from his flesh. The hand stretched, fingers elongating into monstrous digits. Coal-black fur sheathed the new hand. He sliced at his forearm. Thin threads of blood stretched from his wounds, wound about his hand, and snapped into a gauntlet.

  Someone had been practicing.

  “Let me see the range of motion.”

  He moved his fingers, bending them toward his palm, pinkie to thumb. Blood armored claws cut through the air. The hair on the back of my neck rose.

  Making blood weapons and armor was one of the two most important skills to the Shinar bloodline. Dealing with the shar, an irresistible urge to claim land and defend it from all threats, was the other. Blood armor had its limits and blood weapons broke after a few hours of use, their magic exhausted, but while they las
ted, they made you practically invulnerable. A blood blade cut through solid steel like it was nothing.

  It was a skill that would’ve been out of my reach if it wasn’t for Kate.

  Years ago, I was bitten by a shapeshifter and my body rebelled against me. I would’ve gone loup, but the Pack’s chief physician, Dr. Doolittle, had sedated me, delaying the inevitable to allow Kate and Curran to come to terms with it. I was going to be put down. In a last-ditch effort to save me, Kate pulled the blood out of my body with magic and washed it with hers, purging the Lyc-V from me.

  Her blood coursed through me, and it gave me the powers of her bloodline. Even after my transformation forever altered me, I had retained the power of blood magic. After Erra and I had awakened her people, Erra named me her formal heir. Some of the advisors raised concerns about whether or not I was suitable. I walked into the session of the council, dumped a gallon of vampire blood at my feet, cut my arm, and clothed myself in blood armor. Nobody ever questioned my right to rule again.

  Conlan rotated his wrist. The gauntlet fit him like second skin. The construction was perfect. A year ago, he could only coat his claws. It must’ve taken him months of intense work. I wondered why he spent so much time with Grandfather. Every time I popped in, he was there.

  “I’ve applied myself,” my brother said. “I want in.”

  He was looking at me with that single-minded determination I often saw on Kate’s face. Conlan had made up his mind. He would find out what was going on. My choices had shrunk to two options: tell him myself and control the narrative, or let him figure it out on his own and kiss the chances of reining him in goodbye.

  “I’m trusting you with something important.”

  “I know.”

  “One careless word, and we’ll end up with the kind of disaster nobody can fix.”