Shadows and Sorcery: A Collection of Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels

by Adkins, Heather Marie

  He wore a white wife-beater tank and grey sweatpants, probably because he’d seen an ad from long ago that said those were attractive for men to wear. Bangles clinked at his wrist and a chain hooked through the fabric at his waist, attaching to his shoulder like a metal suspender.

  Black tattoos twisted up both his arms. None of them depicted anything. They were just lines he liked to trace whenever he was particularly angry.

  Thankfully, he wasn’t tracing the lines right now.

  Selene shifted away from Marla’s cart as he crossed the throng of people and sat down next to her.

  “Fancy meeting you here, doom-and-gloom,” he said with a grin.

  She tightened her fingers on the fork and reminded herself that stabbing him in the eye with it would only make Marla mad. And then she wouldn’t get to use the fork again. Using a fork was a rarity that made her feel a little more like a person and less like a figment of people’s imagination.

  It took all her willpower to put the fork back into the rice, scoop some up, and lift it to her mouth. Somehow, she managed.

  Jack’s grin turned into a frown. “What’s got your panties in a twist?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Smile for Jackie?”

  “I don’t have to smile for you, or anyone else. It’s not my job to pretend to be happy just so you can be.” She shoved rice into her mouth and smiled with food pushing against her teeth. “Or were you looking for a different answer, Jackal?”

  “You’re no fun.”

  “You’re annoying. I guess we’re even.” She scraped the fork on the bottom of the bowl and poured the rest into her mouth. “What do you want?”

  “Can’t I visit an old friend?”

  “We’re not friends, and you’re a leech. You want something.”

  He pressed a hand dramatically to his chest. A new tattoo wrapped around his pinky finger, thorns spiking off a vine. He didn’t usually tattoo things that were actually things on himself.

  Selene pointed at it. “What’s with that?”

  “What?” He looked down at the tattoo and shrugged. “I dunno. Thought I’d add something new to the growing artwork.”

  “It’s different from the others.”

  “You don’t like change, do you, Gloom?”

  “Change isn’t always bad, but it mostly is.” Selene poked the tattoo with a finger like it might bite her. “And change on you is unpredictable. What happened?”

  “Nothing.” But he suddenly looked nervous.

  She wondered if he would unravel if she pulled just enough of this thread. He didn’t look like he would be a tough nut to crack. Maybe, just maybe, she could tear a secret out of him.

  It wouldn’t be right. Gods like them were supposed to help each other. Of course, even that had changed in the past few years, but that didn’t mean she would forsake the old ways as the other gods had. Jackal had helped her, even when she didn’t want him to, and she owed him.

  Selene hated owing debts.

  She set the bowl down beside her and sighed. “Fine. What is it that you want?”

  “I knew you’d come around.” He clapped a hand on her shoulder, making her flinch. “Here’s the deal, Gloom. We’ve got a big thing happening right down the street in just a few minutes. All the Tricksters are going, but the problem is that I see this big thing becoming even bigger. And you’re my favorite death goddess, so I thought, well, you could come and help us out a little.”

  “You mean someone is going to shoot up the bank down the street and you want me to collect all the souls?”

  “I thought you might want to.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Jack, how many times do I have to tell you, I’m not interested in gathering any more souls. I’ve already got way too many to take care of.”

  “And how many times do I have to remind you that you’re the only death god who thinks like that, and that you need those souls to keep yourself running?”

  He was right, but that didn’t mean she had to like it. Selene hated having to be a death goddess. The job never stopped. She wanted a vacation where she didn’t have to worry about all the thousands of souls that she was supposed to tend to, then reincarnate somewhere on the planet. It was really no wonder the rest of the death gods lurked around hospitals. It saved them some time compared to her endless wanderings.

  She tucked her hands into the sleeves of her dark hoodie, balling the tails in her fists. “I don’t have to remind you what happened the last time I got too powerful. I’m fine remaining a nameless death goddess, thank you very much.”

  Selene’s history was steeped in blood and the wreckage of the world as people knew it. She didn’t like to talk about it. Who would? But Jackal knew the story, as did most people in her line of work, and that meant she had to keep to herself.

  Notoriety was one thing. Being infamous was another.

  “Live a little, Gloom. Or you’ll find yourself falling behind the world just like the rest of us.”

  She hated when he was right. Tricksters were supposed to be foolish things with minds that only wanted to cause mischief. Why did he have to be someone who could see into her mind so easily?

  She sighed and stood. The plate shook in her hand as she brought it back to Marla.

  The old woman gave her a look, but didn’t say anything when Selene handed it back to her. She made sure to hand the fork back to her separately so no one else saw the utensil change hands. “Take care of that, a fork is valuable in these areas.”

  “Take care of yourself,” Marla finally said. Her brow was wrinkled with worry. “You know you don’t have to go with that man, don’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “You owe no one a debt, and you certainly don’t have to convince someone to let you live. That’s a job for God himself.”

  Selene didn’t have it in her to let the old woman know that God had abdicated his throne a long time ago. There was no one looking down on earth anymore. He’d long ago given up on humans and their ilk.

  She turned on her heel and nodded at Jack. “Fine, whatever you want. Just let me know when and where.”

  He held out his arm like the gentleman he wasn’t. “Come with me, Doom-and-gloom. We're all setting up and I think you’re going to like the game plan this time.”

  “If you are all perched in the rafters like vultures, I refuse to take part in this.”

  “We’re not monsters! We’re going to all go invisible and wander through their ranks, and you’re going to be the only one anyone can see. You can manage that, right?”

  Selene pointed to the right side of her face. “Do you really think this is the kind of face humans forget? I shouldn’t be at the forefront of anything.”

  “That’s what a hood is for. People have gotten away with far worse with a lot less.”

  2

  Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;

  And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.

  ~ Edgar Allan Poe

  Selene stood in the back of the bank, cleaning her nails with a borrowed pen from one of the tellers. He’d given her a weird look when she asked for it. As he should. Not many people walked into a bank without an account, and then asked for a pen just to clean their nails. But she liked the blue lines it drew underneath the white tips.

  She couldn’t tell him that she was waiting for a man to walk in with a gun and start trouble. She wasn’t even sure how the person had found a gun. There weren’t many of them left, not after the giant war that had started and all the battles after that. Humans couldn’t make them anymore, so having a gun was only for people with authority and the military.

  Maybe the man was ex-military? That would be interesting. She hadn’t seen one of those in a long time.

  The Tricksters milled through the crowd. She watched one of the younger ones poke a woman in the back. The human turned around with a gasp and scolded the man behind her. Little things like that satisfied the Tricksters. They fed off
of chaos like it was a well-made soup.

  Jack strolled up to Selene, hands in his pockets, entirely invisible to the humans that gave her strange looks.

  “Ready?” he asked her.

  “I’ve been ready for a while, Jack. You said this would be happening quick. So far, I’ve wasted an entire afternoon.”

  “Patience, Doom-and-gloom. You’ll be getting a bunch of souls for just an afternoon of work. You can wait.” He pointed to the people around them, gesturing wildly. “As far as the eye can see will soon be yours.”

  Dramatic man. She didn’t want any of the souls here. They were all medium people, medium souls that would live medium lives in the afterlife. She preferred very good people. Or very bad people.

  Then she could entertain herself no matter what mood she was in.

  Jack patted her on the head, an action he knew she hated, then wandered off while she was dusting his handprint away from herself. She didn’t like touch. Anyone touching her felt wrong and slimy, especially from a Trickster like him.

  Selene pulled her hand away and stared at the white and black strands tangled around her fingers. When was the last time she’d brushed her hair? Or more importantly, when was the last time she’d cared enough to think about her appearance?

  A man strolled into the bank, the same as any of the other humans. She might not have noticed him with the simple ball cap, grey sweatpants, and mousy brown hair if the Tricksters hadn’t simultaneously looked over at him.

  Each and every Trickster god froze in place. Their bodies tensed and their eyes grew hungry as they watched the man make his way across the lobby of the bank. He paused for the security to run a beeping wand over his body. No lights went off, even though the Tricksters said he was carrying a gun. Selene wondered how he’d managed that.

  It was different these days than she remembered from when she was young. Banks had security, but nothing like this.

  The soon-to-be troublemaker stuffed his hands in his pockets, lowered the brim of his cap, and walked up to the teller who stood behind bars. No employee got in and out of the bank unless they went through the underground tunnel up into their personal cells for the day. They were screened multiple times, stripped, given new clothes, and then brought up to hand out the meager money for the day.

  No one but the extremely wealthy had any coin left. Even then, it wasn’t much. So the bank hoarded what riches it still had, and did its best to make sure no one else had the money.

  Selene reached into her pocket and pulled out a strip of faded, blue ribbon. She’d had it for gods knew how long. Years now. The ends had been glued so many times just to preserve the piece. She couldn’t let this one go. It tied directly to her past, into that dark time she rarely spoke of, but it always helped her through difficult moments.

  Blowing out a breath, she tucked it back into her pocket and touched the outside to make sure it was there. Her mind eased at the simple touch, and the faint scent of anais and cloves swirled up into the air. Somehow, impossibly, the ribbon still smelled like him.

  Jack rounded the bank and made his way back to her side. “You ready for the fireworks show?”

  “How many people do you think he’s going to kill?”

  “A lot. His name is Ethan, lives on the West End with his buddy who happens to be a certifiable genius. Tried to be an engineer before the end of the world hit. Now he makes plastic machine guns that can go through metal detectors without being caught.” Jack nodded toward the man who now stood at the counter. “That one is the first to try them out, and he has no idea how spectacularly it’s going to work.”

  Once upon a time, she would have cared that people were going to die. Back when she was still young, naive, and thought humans had the capability to be nice.

  Those were the good old days.

  Selene shook herself free from those old memories. She couldn’t afford to care about them, because then she wouldn’t let them die. And if they didn’t die, then she would slowly waste away until she had what they called a God Death.

  She wasn’t like normal people. Those glowing human souls burning inside them were really a one-way ticket to reincarnation. Gods like her, they weren’t going anywhere. A death was a death. Lights out. The end of the crayon. The bottom of the wick. However it was said, she had no other life after this one. Thankfully, she was immortal as long as she absorbed souls.

  A bell rang, marking the noontime lunch that would close the bank. The crowd surged forward in reaction to the sound. Everyone wanted the last chance to get their money before anything else happened.

  “Wait!” a man behind her shoved forward. His moth-eaten jacket hung in tatters past his shoulders, and the scruff on his face hadn’t been shaved in weeks. “My rations!”

  He shoved past Selene, rocking her nearly off her feet when she had no intention of fighting the crowd to the front. Suddenly, she was pushed into the teeming mass of humans, all racing forward to get a few more coins so they could afford dinner for their family. The bank kept all the money in the city, and there wasn’t much of it left, so rations of people’s savings were the only way to keep everyone in line.

  Apparently, it didn’t keep them in line at the bank.

  Another person shoved her, spinning her around in a circle until she stared at the front door where the last few people trickled through.

  The last man to enter the bank slipped in behind a woman with neon pink hair. A simple white shirt stretched across his lean form, tight across the chest but far too baggy at his hips. Dark brows slashed across his face above narrow eyes, his square jaw and sharp cheekbones cast in shadow by shaggy dark hair that flopped across his forehead.

  All the breath rushed from her lungs and her knees grew weak. Him. Of all the people to walk into this bank, so far from where he lived, he was here.

  She forgot how to move. Instead, she stood frozen with her hood up, shadowing her face, staring at the man like he held the meaning of life in his eyes. And for her?

  He did.

  Jack coughed behind her. “Uh oh.”

  That was a massive understatement. An “uh oh” didn’t explain the way her stomach dropped out of her chest or the heat that flamed her face. She was a goddess of death. She shouldn’t feel like this just from seeing a human. And he was a human now, she had to remind herself. The past was long gone.

  A hand on her shoulder squeezed tight. “You okay there, Gloom?”

  “Did you know he would be here?”

  Jack scoffed then drew his hand away to press it against his own chest. “Did I know the Harbinger of Death, the Bringer of the End, the man who started the apocalypse would be here?”

  “That’s not him,” she murmured, glancing back at the man who nervously looked down at the paper in his hand, pushed up glasses she didn’t remember him needing, then patiently waited at the back of the line.

  “Could have fooled me. Sure looks like him.”

  “But it isn’t. Not anymore.” She had to remind herself of that every day. The man standing over there, the one that looked so much like the man she loved, wasn’t him.

  Ronin, or Reaper as he was known, had been a force to be reckoned with. He stood strong and powerful. His mere presence made people tremble in his wake as a king of gods walked among them. The sound of his voice had been thunder, the force of his stare a strike of lightning.

  The man shifting side to side with a piece of paper in his hand wasn’t that god. He wasn’t the one who made people quake when he walked among them, and he never would be again.

  Why did that break her heart so much?

  Selene shook her head and turned away from the sight. “That’s not him, Jack.”

  “You sure about that? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” He took a step away from her. “I’m not taking any chances with an angry death goddess. If you’ve got a beef with him, it’s with him. Not me.”

  “I’m not going to hurt anyone.”

  “I know the stories. You and him—” He gesture
d between the two of them wildly. “There was stuff there that changed the future.”

  Selene wanted to hit him. She knew her own damn story. She didn’t need it repeated by someone who never heard the truth from the actual source. “Enough, Jack.”

  “You want me to ignore that you helped end the world? It was the greatest thing any of us have ever done and he—”

  She didn’t think; she lashed out. Selene snapped a hand out and grasped Jack’s throat, pulling him toward her with a strength that shouldn’t have been in her much smaller body. She pressed her lips against his ear and whispered, “I’m a death god for a reason, Jackal of the Trickster clan. Press your luck a little longer and we’ll measure your soul together.”

  Red-faced, he rasped, “I don’t have a soul.”

  The poor boy. Always underestimating her and only realizing moments later what he had done. Selene leaned back, her lips parting in a smile that was part entertainment and part threat. “I ended the world, Jack. If I want to keep you after death, I will.”

  Anger burned behind her eyes, bubbling at her core like lava in the center of a volcano. Except she was in control of all the sizzling hatred that wanted to overwhelm her once again. She’d always fought the inherent need to destroy.

  Except that one time, when she hadn’t fought it at all. When she’d embraced that darkness, because a man had beckoned her into the shadows with a crooked finger and a satanic smile.

  And then the world paid for her small lapse in judgement.

  Selene released her hold on Jack’s neck and shoved him back. The humans ignored her. It wasn’t unusual that a mad person wandered amongst them, talking to shadows or things other people couldn’t see. Sometimes she wondered if those mad people could actually see the gods. Or maybe if she were mad herself, thinking that she was a death goddess when really, she’d just lost her mind long ago.

  The Trickster god in front of her pressed a hand to his throat, covering the red handprint. “Damn, Doom-and-gloom, you’ve got some pent up aggression going on.”

  A gunshot rocked through the lobby. Drywall rained down on a few people who shrieked, and the rest of the crowd stilled then dropped to the floor. Ethan of West End had pulled the plastic machine gun from underneath his clothes and wildly began to point at everyone around him.