For some reason, my sleeping problem was worse when everyone was in bed. It was the only time the Valley quieted down and you were left with only your thoughts for company.
When I looked at Ruck beside me, his eyes were a little flatter than they used to be, the shadows a little darker underneath. It wasn’t the barely rising sun. I knew mine looked the same.
He pointed to the worm, which was nearly out of sight. “Why do you keep asking it? It’s been telling you to leave every day since we got back.”
I kept looking at the dirt, at nothing. “I keep thinking it’ll say something different.”
“Bugs.” Ryker’s deep voice cut across the distance. He was standing down the lane, feet shoulder width apart, which was quite wide. His dark hair rustled with the breeze. In the soft light of morning, he almost looked like he could climb up on a white horse. But he wasn’t a knight and never would be. He was the Cursed King, capable of mass murder simply by walking through a crowd.
It was the one thing I didn’t mind about him at the moment. I’d never been fond of the color white anyway. White was only good for snowflakes. Snowflakes couldn’t withstand what was coming for me. I’d need people beside me that wouldn’t melt under some heat and wouldn’t blanch at a little dirt on their hands.
Ryker tilted his head and then started back in the direction of his place. He clearly wanted something, since we didn’t practice until after breakfast.
“He wants me to meet him at his place,” I said, stating the obvious.
“So?” Ruck asked.
He didn’t get it, just as he hadn’t understood how uncomfortable dinner had been. A talk at Ryker’s place seemed innocent enough, but it was actually hell. Didn’t matter if we were discussing the weather or war. Our magic mixed in a funny way when we were in his house. Sitting in his place, enclosed in a normal-sized room, was like waiting for magic to hit me, over and over again.
I’d never followed anyone into hell, but I couldn’t let him walk off. I wouldn’t know what he wanted, and I wasn’t that kind of person. I needed to know things. I liked knowing, and Ryker knew all sorts of stuff.
I took a last glance at the dirt where the worm had disappeared before I gave Ruck an I’m-going-in look.
He nodded back.
I took off at a jog and caught up to Ryker, hoping I could get my answers without going inside with him. That magic, the potent stuff he lugged around that could kill people, would get so much worse in his place. It was like combining a thunderstorm and some metal rods. It shot straight for me and lit me up.
Sometimes, once in a while, I kind of liked it. That almost made it worse.
“What’s up?” I asked him a few feet from his door.
“We need to talk,” he said, getting closer and closer to his place.
“About what? Did you find a new stone to steal?”
“No. We’ve got other priorities at the moment.”
I watched his back until it disappeared into his place, the last apartment in a row of homes. Two more doors lined the building, one leading to Burn’s place and the other to Sneak’s. It was another redeeming quality of Ryker’s. Lots of other Wyrd Blood erected castles. He didn’t give a shit. I liked that.
But I still didn’t want to go inside.
“Bugs,” he called.
Shit. I walked in. I left the door open as I headed to his couch, one of the few pieces of furniture in the place. It was well worn, like most of his furniture, and he didn’t care.
He walked over and shut the door. “Stop jittering.”
“I’m not.” I pressed my hand over my knee. If I had been, it wasn’t my fault. We weren’t even arguing, and his magic was already revved up. “Is there a problem?”
His magic was stronger than mine, and he also had more control. If he didn’t get his pulled in, I had no shot at dimming mine, and we’d continue this ping-pong match until one of us had a magical black eye.
Ryker leaned both hands on the chair in front of him. His knuckles were white where they gripped it. “There might be. The Debt Collector is willing to meet.”
The Debt Collector, also known as the magical creature that held my life in his hands. That wasn’t an exaggeration, either. Ryker had bought me some time by having a witch do some mojo, but I was an hourglass that had been flipped. My life was pouring out.
Ryker had sent messages out to anyone who might know where he was, but I hadn’t really believed we’d get a reply. Now the Debt Collector had replied, fast. Too fast. That didn’t bode well. Only someone with the upper hand didn’t need time. The desperate clung to every minute, hoping the next second would give them an alternative. I knew firsthand.
Ryker’s magic flared up and hit home like a bolt of lightning, flashing on the horizon and showing the dark terrain. My palms grew clammy and my crossed ankles swung to the beat of my pounding heart.
“Watch your magic, Bugs.”
Watch your magic. Your magic is out of control. Do something with your magic. I was sick of hearing over and over again about how my magic was out of control when his was kicking the hell out of me like a bucking bronco.
He should try and control his magic for a change. No one seemed to want to tell him he was on a downward spiral. I’d tell him, not that it would get me anywhere, but I’d wait until I got the rest of the details of the Debt Collector first. Ryker could be a real bastard with withholding. Information should be shared generously, but he thought it should be hoarded for a rainy day.
I’d get what I needed and then I’d tell him he needed to get his magic under control. A little introspection wouldn’t hurt him instead of pointing that finger all over the place. He’d get another couple of minutes to point while I got my answers.
“You only sent word out a couple weeks ago, correct?”
He nodded once, sparing me any trivial words that might’ve lifted the heaviness off that single movement. Okay, so we both thought it was fast. Maybe fast wasn’t really bad. I didn’t know the full content of the message yet. Needed all the facts if I was going to make a determination. The Debt Collector might be very efficient for all I knew. Creepy didn’t mean you were a slacker. There were plenty of sick and crazy individuals who were highly productive.
“Did Old Bones write anything else?”
His chin dropped. “Old Bones?”
I forced tense muscles to slouch against the back of the couch. “I envisioned him being gaunt and wearing a large, ratty black robe. Seemed fitting.”
His eyes crinkled a bit, as if he were doubtful, but he let it go. “Time and place. That’s all.”
White knuckles spread to bunched forearms. The shoulders rounded into a neck you could’ve strummed a tune on. The eyes were intense, but that was pretty much status quo.
“Where?” I asked, realizing I was going to have to drag every detail out of him.
He walked to the edge of the couch and leaned a forearm on the wall. “Three days from now at the ancient temple outside the Ruined City.”
“Right outside the Ruins?”
“Yes. And stop calling it the Ruins.”
I ignored his Ruins comment. I was too freaked out about where we were meeting.
Before magic had burst into existence, there had been temples everywhere. People would go pray, talking to unseen gods, asking for this and that. I’d explored the temple he was talking about many times. I’d even stashed hauls in it. I could’ve thrown a stone at it from the window of my old pad.
“This has to be a recent move.”
“I’m sure. I think we were going to have this meeting whether we called for it or not. He knows we want something, but I think he wants something as well. If he was ready to kill you now, he wouldn’t bother meeting.”
I stood. If he told me to get my magic under control again, it might burst out of me. I was clinging to calm by the skin of my teeth.
Now what? Was I going to march in there and say, Hey, don’t take my soul because I’m such a great girl. I only s
teal for good reasons?
“Will your magic work on him?” I was getting very good at breaking wards, but I’d stalled out on making them. My magic was useless for protection, but I was standing in front of the Cursed King. That should mean something.
He rubbed his shadowed jaw as if he’d been thinking this over more times than I had. “I don’t know. He’s not a dull, and I’m not sure he’s a Wyrd Blood either. Using magic on something magical always comes with a risk. It might be our only option, but it could blow up in ways we can’t imagine.”
That wasn’t good. After I’d learned Ryker was the Cursed King, I’d felt a little securer. It hadn’t been a thought-out type of security, where I checked off a box, but a gut reaction. It had popped up when I realized I’d hooked up with a person who could wipe the world clean. Some people might’ve run scared after they found out who Ryker really was. Me? I’d slept a little sounder.
I paced the area. “We have to go—or I do, anyway.”
“I agree. I think we go early.”
I shot him a look over my shoulder that said, Of course you’d have to make it worse.
“It’s the only thing he might not expect if he is planning something.”
I took a few more steps. The logic was sound, but that didn’t make the stone sit any easier in my gut. This one was going to be giving me heartburn tonight as I lay in bed and dreamt of sleeping.
There was only one way I could make this palatable enough to keep down. “We go alone. I don’t want to risk anyone else.”
The only person I had left was Ruck, and I couldn’t lose him. The idea of Burn or Sneak dying didn’t sit too well either. I wouldn’t have any more blood on my hands. I was still trying to get rid of the stain Sinsy’s had left, and that was a doozy. Sometimes it felt like her blood was still dripping from my fingertips.
“Agreed.”
He couldn’t have said anything that would’ve rattled my nerves more. I might’ve appeared calm—calmish…at least something shy of having a total meltdown, but I was oh shitting like a maniac on the inside. Ryker wasn’t an over-reactor. If he was worried about his people, that meant I should definitely be in an all-out panic.
“We leave at first light tomorrow.”
I nodded and headed for the door, needing to be alone so I could think straight. “I’ll see you after breakfast,” I said, figuring he’d still want to practice today.
“No. Skip it today.”
I froze at the door. Within a few seconds, my heart jump-started my feet enough to get me outside. Ryker didn’t want to torture me anymore, because there was no fun in torturing a dead woman.
4
The walk from Ryker’s place to mine was dulled by exhaustion and a skeletal creature that wouldn’t get out of my head. I didn’t know if Old Bones would actually look like a skeleton, but that was how I envisioned him. He dealt in lives. Only fitting he’d look like the Reaper. I was so dedicated to my illusions that I didn’t notice the girl waiting by my place until there was no feigning a new direction.
She was probably around my chronological age by years. But the innocence in her eyes said she was shy of my life experience by a couple decades of hard knocks and at least fifty kicks in the gut.
There were a lot of people like her walking around this place Ryker ran. I tried not to hold their pampered lives against them, but it didn’t make me want to hang out with them, either. I didn’t have the time to swap pie recipes or talk about dying cloth.
I thought of making a quick right, but she had the look of a person who’d follow, and I wasn’t in the mood to do laps to see who could run the fastest.
“Hi,” she said, raising her hand and following it with a peppy little wave, as if the giddy but slightly desperado tone hadn’t been enough to send me running. I needed to get away from her rainbow before I was lured in by the mirage of pretty colors.
“Hi.” I’d heard in polite society you were supposed to reply to greetings even if you didn’t want to. Since I didn’t know how long I’d be living here, I’d made a decision to get on the “good people” list. You never knew when that social shit might come in handy. A soft-skinned, dull people might not seem very useful, but you never knew when one would block a bullet.
Only issue was, what did I do with her now? She was standing in front of my door, looking like her feet had grown roots. I could try and climb in through my window, but that might undo the effort I’d put into the greeting. I slowed to stop, since it was that or walk into her.
She wrung her hands. “I heard you know things?”
“Know what things?” No. Not a good line of questioning to open up. Of course I knew things, everyone did, but there were probably very few of those things I’d want to share.
Her chest inflated enough to blow out a lung. I launched into damage control before the air headed back out with a tide of more questions.
“I don’t know what you heard, but I know nothing. And the stuff I do know is usually wrong.” I took a step to the left, trying to get around her and in my door. She swayed with me. I broke right, and she wobbled that way.
I swished a hand, motioning for her to get out of my way. I smiled while I did it to take the bite out of the dismissal.
She didn’t move. “But you read worms, right?”
Read worms. It sounded like a dirty version of reading tea leaves or tarot cards.
“Nope. I can barely read books.” Although I’d made some progress of late, I was far from tackling anything that didn’t give me a few picture hints. A lot of people from the Ruined City couldn’t read. Ruck could, but he’d learned before I’d met him, back when he had a family.
“But I heard—”
“I’m very tired. Had a rough sleep. Maybe we can do this some other time?”
A glimmer of Ruck’s head bounced in the distance. He was heading for me, and then he caught sight of the chick standing next to me and turned around. Thanks, buddy.
She took a step closer. “I just need you to ask them one question, please. I’ve tried to read worms, but they lie there in a pile no matter how many I try.”
“How many worms did you dig up?” What was wrong with this woman? Worming wasn’t for everyone. I couldn’t have random people yanking worms from the ground like they knew what they were doing and piling them up. What would happen when I needed them?
I headed toward the tree line and had to stop to go back and grab her arm as she stared at me in confusion.
“I’m going to do this for you, but only this once. In exchange, you need to leave the worming to the professionals from now on. And you need to spread the word that you can’t dig worms up and think you’ll get answers. It doesn’t work like that.”
“Okay. Yes, definitely. I’ll do whatever you want.”
That I believed. For now, anyway.
I stopped in one of my favorite worming spots, behind a nice Pluckabessy bush, and knelt on the ground. I grabbed a stick and drew out a circle, making a Y on one side and a N across from it, remembering how I used to not know either of those letters.
“What’s your name?” I didn’t really want to know, but I didn’t want the worm to be confused whose question this was.
“Kallie.”
“What’s your question? Make it simple, because I only do yes or nos.”
She nodded vigorously before asking, “Will I get pregnant?”
I knew from her tone she was hoping for a yes. I looked at the sky, but stopped short of shaking my head and sighing.
“How old are you? Don’t you want to do anything else before you have kids? Isn’t this a little early?” More importantly, do you have any idea the hell is headed our way? Ryker had stolen a magical stone from Bedlam, and the Debt Collector might be showing up at our doorstep any second.
Of course, I couldn’t ask her that. I had a feeling it might cause an avalanche of panic, followed by a stampede out of here. And where would they go? There wasn’t anywhere better. I’d been enough places to attest to
it.
“I want a family,” she said, her voice small and her eyes big.
At least that I could understand. I stared down at the dirt, running my fingers through it and wondering if there was anything I could say to stop her. Probably not. She looked to be the stubborn type. Still, I’d give it a try.
“Look, things are calm now, but you know this world.” No, I didn’t think she did know this world at all. She’d been living in a cocoon. She knew nothing but her biological drive. She probably wouldn’t really learn until she was running for her life trying to save her child. “It’s turbulent and rocky, and there’s been wars breaking out for years. Maybe you should wait a while.”
“That’s what Bakely says, but I’m done waiting to live my life. I’ll never regret having a child and a family, no matter what anyone says.”
She had a point, and maybe a little more spine than I’d given her credit for. Who was I to dictate what she should do? Hell, she’d managed better for herself living here than I had. Maybe I should be listening to her?
I dug through the dirt and grabbed a slimy little bugger. I cupped it in my hands. “Will Kallie have a baby?”
I placed it down, and it shot over to Y quicker than I’d ever seen.
I stood. “Yep. You’re going to have one.”
She brought her hands together and did a little jump. “When?”
I opened my mouth to tell her that I’d held up my end, but then she grabbed my arm.
“Please! Just one last question.”
I sighed, loud enough to make sure she knew she was pushing it. Then I relented and squatted back down with an irritated grunt. “This is it, though.”
I dug up another worm. I could’ve sworn I caught some attitude in its wiggle, as if it wanted to leap from my palm. I moved it toward Kallie a smidge, and the wiggling picked up steam. If this thing had a middle finger, it would’ve been waving it at us right now.
I moved it away a bit and told it, “Look, I understand, but you’re going to have to take one for the team, or your brethren are going to be baking in the sun after a”—I glanced to see how closely she was listening—“dull digs your asses up,” I finished with a whisper.
Full Blood (Wyrd Blood Book 2) Page 3
