by Kira Brady
“Why not?”
He didn’t think she would like it, that’s why. And what kind of response was that anyway? He didn’t care what she thought. Damn woman. He was losing his edge.
“So who is this other operative? Why’s he called the Reaper?”
“It’s a girl. She hunts aptrgangr and sends the wraiths back where they came from. Someone joked that she harvests souls for hell, just like the Grim Reaper, and the name stuck.”
“And she’s Kivati, like you?”
“Naw. She’s human, but she’s got a gift for it. Maybe it’s something supernatural, don’t ask me. She’s a little obsessed.” Grace always ran straight into trouble like her ass was on fire, like she had a death wish or something. He knew she didn’t, just the same blinding drive for freedom he did. He didn’t imagine Norgard would let her ghost go that easily.
“Why?”
“Aptrgangr killed her folks.” Though something dark and nasty had killed his mom and you didn’t see him trying to make revenge his life’s work. He shook his head and approached Thor’s Hammer, where Grace worked her magic. The specialized tattoo parlor occupied a narrow storefront. The top of the Dutch door stood open to the cold spring air. The Reaper didn’t like to be shut in.
He yanked the tasseled bellpull, and a man’s voice yelled, “Go away!”
“Open up, you fucker,” Hart called back, “or I’ll huff and I’ll puff—”
Oscar emerged. “Hart, you bastard!” He rubbed soot off his hand with a handkerchief, then extended it to shake. His sleeves were rolled up, and his forearms marked with grease. People underestimated him, because his face was too pretty and his body lean. He sized up Kayla, with obvious interest.
“Oscar.” Hart jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “This is Kayla.”
“Aren’t you cute?” Oscar gave her a once-over. He blinked at the ragged right leg of her pants, where Cortez had shredded them. “Ripped jeans went out of style decades ago. Or are we trying for neo-grunge?”
“Inside,” Hart snapped. The crow on the roof above listened intently.
“A story. Excellent.”
“Where’s the Reaper?”
“Come in and see for yourself.” Oscar held the door open for them. “The boss has her making decorations for Nisannu, as if she didn’t have better things to do.”
Hart’s eyes adjusted quickly to the dark interior. It smelled like an apothecary, overlaid with a thick layer of iron. Shelves of ink and additives lined the walls. Tools of Grace’s trade. He didn’t know what liquids were housed in the ceramic jars, and he didn’t want to. Grace kept close tabs on the Gate with seismographs and steam clocks. Her machines tracked the movements of the earth and measured the currents of Aether. Gears clicked steadily. Needles bounced with seismic readings. Barometers of mercury rose and fell. A metal duct connected each machine to the potbellied stove that powered them. Every so often, the stove belched thyme-scented steam.
Oscar picked up a discarded wrench and waved it menacingly at the stove. “Better part of a morning fixing that blasted thing. I don’t know why you need it, Grace. Aren’t there enough aptrgangr wandering the streets to make your quota?”
“Stuff it,” Grace said without heat. “At least I’ll have warning when the whole thing blows. You’ll just be a pile of bones under volcanic ash.” In her usual dour black, she blended into the shadows. Her blue-tinted hair was tucked behind her ear. Crouching in the center of a circle of salt, she carved runes into red ceramic beads with a silver needle and a small brass hammer. Her work produced a rhythmic click-click-click.
“You can’t be sure,” Oscar said cheerily. “I might fall in a crevasse. Better to be buried alive than survive to be aptrgangr chow.”
Grace scowled. “I wouldn’t let that happen to you—”
“No, darling, you’d probably slit my throat yourself.” Oscar threw himself into a rusty old dentist’s chair. It was the only piece of furniture not covered by machines or jars. Restraining straps hung off it like a torture rack. Propping his feet on the foot bars, he picked up his leather flask from the cup holder and lifted it with a theatrical flourish. “To loyalty! May I always have friends like these.”
Grace’s black-and-white cat sat to her right. He lifted his head at Oscar’s pronouncement, snorted disdainfully, and returned to washing one white-tipped paw. The cat ignored Hart.
“Hullo, Reaper,” Hart said. He squatted at the edge of the circle, careful not to upset any lines of power she might have drawn. Only the cat could cross threads of magic and not disrupt the balance.
“It’s you,” Kayla said. She stared from Grace to the cat, questions dancing in her eyes.
“Who?” Grace asked.
“Short girl with a cat. You taught Desi Norse mythology.”
Grace paused with her hammer lifted. “Says who?”
“Some kids from the U. Adam and Caroline. Did you know my sister?”
Grace glared at Hart. “What the hell is she doing here?”
“She’s cool,” Hart said. “She’s with me—”
“I can see that.” Grace waved her hand to cut him off. She finished chiseling the rune on the bead, threaded it on a leather thong, and tossed it carelessly on a pile of completed Nisannu necklaces behind her. She turned to Kayla. “Your sister’s got a big mouth.”
Kayla turned white. She gave a tight smile. “Had.”
Hart had the sudden urge to grab her hand. The tight pinch of her shoulders made his fingers itch to rub them. Where the hell did that come from? He had to stop this before it got out of hand. The Reaper was prickly on a good day, and they needed her help. “Grace, we’ve got something for you to check out. Kayla?”
Kayla stepped forward and pulled the necklace out of her pocket. The cat jumped from his lounging position, hissing. The fur along his back bristled.
Grace winced. “That thing reeks.”
Kayla lifted it to her nose. “Hart said it smells like the Gate, but I don’t smell—”
“You wouldn’t. Give it here.” Grace stuck out her hand.
“Don’t worry,” Oscar told Kayla. “I can’t smell it either. Grace might be more human than our toothy friend here, but she’s not without magic.”
Kayla squatted next to the circle and held out the necklace on her upturned palm. The cat retreated behind his mistress’s back. Grace gingerly reached out to touch the jade, but snatched her hand back, burned. Fuck. If the Reaper didn’t like touching it, what was it doing to Kayla? She didn’t have any mental shields, and her emotional state was a mess. Prime picking for any wraith.
Hart wanted to snatch the damned thing from her fingers and hurl it across the room. He reminded himself that this was probably the safest place in the territory. Neither the Reaper nor her cat would let the dead darken their doorway.
Grace braced herself and reached her hand out again. She muttered under her breath as she picked up the necklace with her thumb and forefinger. “Be quiet.” She held the necklace to her ear. Her eyes widened. Her irises flashed silver. Hart had never asked her about her special curse. He didn’t understand what she did, let alone how she did it, but he didn’t envy her. Bad enough he turned into a half-mad Wolf. With Hart’s unnaturally keen nose and tracker instincts, Norgard had his own personal hellhound. He mostly used Hart to find things or people. Hart didn’t want to think about the power Norgard might wield through Grace. The Drekar Regent had taken the girl under his wing at the tender age of sixteen, and she wasn’t just another operative to him. He taught her special skills. Kept her close. Took liberties he didn’t ask from any of his other blood slaves. Thank the Lady.
Hart pushed the thought from his mind, because there was nothing he could do about it. He tried to throw new jobs at Grace when he could, help her earn her freedom a little faster, but he had no power to stop Norgard from taking what he wanted. None of them did.
His eyes fell on the necklace again with the full weight of his future and freedom hanging in the balance. He
was so close.
Grace dropped the stone from her ear. She flipped the jade over and studied the carvings that ran in neat columns over its surface. “Where did you get this?”
After a nod from Hart, Kayla told the story. She was much more thorough than he would have been. The sound of her voice was soothing to his beast. Her words flowed over him like a caress. Warm and melodic.
Sitting next to her outside the circle, he was aware of her every movement. The shift of her cotton shirt over her skin. The swish of her ponytail against her nape. The tap of her fingernails against her leg. Rudrick could come in guns blazing, and he wouldn’t notice. He’d just sit here quietly cataloging the little noises Kayla made, identifying the complex notes of her unique scent, basking in the melody of her voice.
Fuck him. He was a dead man. He needed to ditch the broad, and quickly.
“The aptrgangr called you ‘sister’?” Grace interrupted to ask. “You’re sure?”
Kayla nodded. “It must be Desi, right? Since Cortez died, is she gone for good?”
“I wish,” Grace said. “Would save me a lot of trouble.”
“Will she try to find me again?”
“How the hell should I know? She left you a specific task. Her ghost might be freed when you accomplish it. If she’s lucky.”
“But she hurt me. How would that accomplish the task she’s left me?”
“Probably didn’t mean to, but you ran. It takes wraiths a while to gain control of the body they inhabit.”
Kayla wiped her sleeve across her eyes, thinking of her dead sister again. As if Hart needed a reminder why emotions were a weakness. He tried to ignore her, but he couldn’t stop his hand from reaching out and squeezing her foot. She gave him a trembling smile.
When he turned back to Grace, her eyes were flat. “Get on with it,” she said. “How did you fend off the attack?”
“Since I arrived in Seattle,” Kayla said, “I’ve become aware of something else. A light, I guess, inside people.”
“You didn’t tell me that,” Hart said. So much for trust. She was keeping secrets from him. What happened to information sharing and teamwork? And why did he care so much? He expected people to lie to him.
She shrugged. “I didn’t understand it. I still don’t. Didn’t believe in werewolves or wraiths or strange lights.”
Oscar offered Kayla his flask, which she refused. “Happens to the best of us, darling. We trust only what we can hear and see and touch.”
Kayla’s eyes held gratitude to Oscar for his understanding. The beast inside Hart growled, even though he knew Oscar wasn’t a threat. Hart couldn’t offer understanding. He wasn’t human. He’d been born knowing the spirit world existed. Grace tilted her head and studied Kayla. Her gaze was calculating. “Can you see shadows too?”
Kayla nodded shyly.
“You aren’t using her,” Hart said. Grace ignored him. He wouldn’t let her take Kayla into danger. He turned to Kayla and saw her frustration. “You aren’t cut out to hunt aptrgangr.”
“No, thank you. Violence isn’t my style.” She rubbed her arms. “I didn’t believe you about the aptrgangr, you know.”
Grace gave her a pitying look. “Wraiths find people whose spirits are weak, whether from sickness or depression or lack of willpower.”
“Or from Dreki feeding,” Oscar added. “Some dark spirits follow Drekar around waiting for their leftovers.”
Kayla’s knuckles whitened as she gripped her arms tighter. “Hart, that’s what you meant when you saved me last night. If I had been left drugged in the alley, I would have been a prime target for a wraith?”
He nodded stiffly. She needed to stop looking at him like some goddamned hero. He hadn’t explained that his boss tried to suck out her soul. Hadn’t mentioned that tonight he would deliver the necklace to that same monster.
“I didn’t think she’d get away with it,” Grace muttered, when Kayla finished the story.
“Who? Desi?” Kayla asked.
“You knew what she was planning?” Hart asked. Plotting against Norgard? Grace was smarter than that.
“I didn’t ask questions. Told her not to tell me anything. Just helped her a bit with her mythology research.” Grace walked a fine line. Hart felt his stomach roll in a way that felt suspiciously like anxiety. Worrying for someone else? When had he become an old woman? He was growing soft. “And I can’t tell you what happened either. I don’t know, and I don’t want to.” She set the necklace on the floor next to the cat, who swiped at it with his paws. She picked back up her needle and hammer.
“What was she studying? Norse mythology?” Kayla guessed.
Grace shook her head.
“Babylonian?”
A nod.
“And this necklace is Babylonian, right?”
Another nod. Grace buried her head in her work, carving Nordic runes in dragon’s blood onto the Nisannu beads. Her needle carved a thin shaving off the bead, leaving a trace amount of blood to fuel the spell.
“So we can assume it’s the right one,” Kayla said.
“What’s this necklace do?” Oscar asked. “What’s so important that the Kivati and Drekar would risk human involvement? You’re the tracker, Hart. Is this baby worth a couple billion or—”
“Belongs to Kingu,” Hart said.
Oscar whistled.
“It’s strongly connected to the spirit world,” Grace said. “Focus, and you can feel it almost vibrate with life.”
“It’s sentient?” Kayla asked.
“Sort of. The Aether is alive with the spirits of our ancestors.”
“Aether—you mean the river of light you can see in the Deadglass?”
Oscar whistled again, this time a catcall. “He let you touch his toys?”
All eyes turned to Hart.
He shrugged. “What?”
“Yeah.” Grace drew out the word. “Aether is like the soul of the universe. You would be able to see it in the Deadglass, not that I’ve ever looked.” She finished the rune she was drawing and blew lightly on the bead. “Anyway. The markings on Kingu’s stone tell part of the story of the founding of Babylon.”
“It’s a piece of the Tablet of Destiny, isn’t it?” Hart asked.
“Looks like it,” Grace said.
He had begun to suspect as much. Hearing it confirmed raised the hair on the back of his neck. Norgard had a piece of the Tablet of Destiny and had done nothing with it. He must have been setting events in motion for the perfect moment. With centuries at his disposal, he could afford to be patient. The Pacific Northwest was the perfect place to stage a Gate break, after Chief Seattle had laid his curse. Maybe Norgard’s war with the Kivati had been deliberately planned to reduce the number of gatekeepers. Maybe . . .
It didn’t matter. This job was in Hart’s pocket. As soon as he finished one more, he’d be gone. He would lose himself in the deep dark wild of the frozen north. A Wolf—even a packless loner like him—needed territory. A place to call his own.
Kayla shivered. “Hart said Kingu used the Tablet to conquer the world. Doesn’t that mean it’s evil?”
“The Tablet is a tool,” Grace explained, “not good or evil by itself. What’s important is the spirit of the person who wields it.”
“And it’s the second day of Nisannu,” Oscar said, raising his flask in a mock toast. “Perfect timing.”
Kayla frowned. “What—”
“The Babylonian New Year festival,” Grace explained. “Coincides with the spring equinox. The god who defeated Kingu and slew Tiamat was Marduk. He sliced Tiamat down the middle, and her two halves became the heavens and the earth—”
“Her liver became the North Star,” Oscar added helpfully. “Her spittle the clouds and rain. Her tail the Milky Way. Her breasts—”
“I get the picture,” Kayla said.
Grace continued, “Marduk returned the Tablet of Destiny after he stole it back from Kingu, and was rewarded by the gods. He built his palace between the realms of he
aven and earth and named it Babylon, or ‘Gate of the Gods.’ Every year the King of Babylon performed a ceremony that reinforced the Gate between the worlds.”
“So the Gate is at its weakest until the ceremony is performed,” Hart guessed.
Grace nodded.
“Desi was researching the ceremony,” Kayla said. “I found an article about it in her things.”
Everyone looked at Grace. She buried her head over her hammer and bead.
“How is the ceremony performed?” Kayla asked. “Can anyone do it?”
“I don’t know the details,” Grace said. “I just know what the runes say. Your sister wanted to learn them.”
“Can we destroy the necklace so no one can use it?” Kayla asked.
Enough was enough. Hart could feel the gold bands burning his biceps, as if his master heard the traitorous direction of this conversation. “You’re going back to Philadelphia,” he told Kayla. “You found the necklace—your work is done. I’ll take you to the airport.”
She blinked at him. “Who died and made you king?”
He raked his fingers through his hair. “Stubborn woman. Wouldn’t you rather be alive?”
“I still haven’t found out who killed my sister.”
She had a point. “What does it matter? She wanted you to find the necklace, not stick around and be buried alongside her.”
“My work isn’t done. She wanted me to give it to Corbette.”
Silence settled heavily across the room, like cobwebs after years of abandonment. No one wanted to be the first to break it. He didn’t look at Grace or Oscar. He knew what they were thinking. The necklace belonged to Norgard. There was no way in this world or the next that he would give it to the Raven Lord.
Oscar came to his rescue, laying his charm on thick and fast. “What makes you think Corbette should get it? The Kivati aren’t the shining guardians they’d like you to think. Once upon a time, maybe. But now? The Kivati haven’t done jack about the cracked Gate. Corbette’s too wrapped up in protecting his precious people from dying out. Humans be damned.”
