“Nice try.” I finished the vodka tonic and signaled for a refill. “You’re not getting off that easy.”
She bit the bottom of her lip, her trademark pink lip gloss rubbing off on her front teeth. It briefly reminded me of Samantha Williams, and all those lip gloss-covered cigarette butts.
“I’m not that high on the totem pole.” She stared into her drink, instead of looking at me.
Good liar. A natural. But that was a clear tell.
I said, “Oh, so the DSA grants gravediggers and funeral directors access to the Phoenix Protocol, but not a Reaper?”
“Undertakers.”
“So you do know.” I tapped my drink against hers like we were celebrating progress.
She didn’t share my enthusiasm.
“You know how they contain wildfires, right?”
“Controlled burn,” I said.
“That’s all the protocol is.” Sierra gulped her drink, but must’ve gotten too much liquor—like that was possible in a Cosmo—because she scowled. “Damage control.”
“Damage control for what, exactly?”
“You saw people start coming back to life, E. That guy Deadwood, for instance.”
“Is Lucille looking for him?”
“Looking for him?” Sierra snorted. “We’ve been trying to track him down for the past ten years. Went totally rogue.”
“Wonderful,” I said. “So when you’re saying people come back to life, how far back does it go?”
I flashed to the freshly dug-up graves in the graveyard.
“Forever.” Sierra lowered her voice. “You should really leave these alone.”
“Seeing as how I can’t leave, that’s kind of a problem.”
It took a minute for Sierra to respond. Finally, she said softly, “I know, E.”
We sat in silence, taking in the poorly remixed music and the clatter of conversation as we nursed our drinks. The realization settled in that this all could vanish, like sand washing over a beach. No one would remember Atheas had even existed.
I went slower on the second vodka tonic. The alcohol was beginning to take effect, draping over my problems like a pleasant, muggy blanket. “You know, this is the longest I’ve ever had one job.”
“Come on, E.” Sierra’s lip curled into a smirk. “You passed that milestone after a month.”
She had a point.
I gestured for another before my second drink was done. So much for going slow. The bartender shook his head but then reconsidered when I slapped a twenty down on the water-warped wood.
Crunching an ice cube in my mouth, I said, “And there’s no way Lucille will back off this protocol thing?”
“Say what you want about us,” Sierra said. “We learn from experience.”
“This happened here?”
“It’s happened before,” Sierra said, keeping things cryptic.
“So it’s we, now, eh?” I gave her a playful nudge.
“Whatever. You know what I meant.”
“A company girl. Wearing the costume and everything.”
Sierra’s cheeks flushed. She peered into the swirling pink mass of sugar, saying nothing.
“I mean, long term, I get that overpopulation would kill us.” I unsuccessfully tried to turn a bar napkin into a paper plane. Definitely buzzed, tipping toward drunk. “But short term, a few extra people isn’t a huge deal.”
“The extra people aren’t the real problem, E.” She chugged the rest of her Cosmo with a mighty effort, trying to stall. “It’s what they become after they return.”
That sounded ominous.
I was ready to pursue that line of inquiry further when the metal-hop mash of music snapped off, leaving only voices and the clink of pewterware. Those ambient sounds, too, disappeared, leaving only one source of noise.
A squabble.
Ok, not a squabble.
An all-out brawl.
Adrenaline surged through my veins as the room slowed down. I assessed the exit—only one, straight up the stairs—and the best escape route—through a shifter bachelorette party about ten feet to my right.
Bone cracked. Femur, by the sound of it.
Where the hell was this focus coming from?
Much to my surprise, I knew one of the participants: none other than Dante Cross, his messy sun-bleached brown hair matted with blood. The other guy—a whole lot bigger, and a whole lot badder—was beating the shit out of him.
A powerful fist slammed against Cross’s jaw, sending him careening through a table.
He groaned, laughing through his wounds as he limped back into the fray.
Yeah.
Definitely a femur.
But how had I known that?
“If that’s all you got, then you aren’t as tough as I thought.” Cross wiped a dribble of blood off his lip and sneered.
His foe—at least six-six and pushing three hundred on the scales—stomped on Cross’s leg again. The treasure hunter unleashed an agonizing scream in the silent bar.
Anger took hold of me—irrational given that he’d been an immortal dick the other day—and I slipped through the crowd.
The switchblade snapped out as I leapt on a beer-slicked table.
The big guy saw me coming. He reared back with a punch aimed at my knees.
Timing it perfectly, I hopped over his muscular arm and landed on the ground beside him.
Before he could recover, I slashed at his right leg, shredding his Achilles.
He toppled like a redwood. His strong fingers reached for me. By instinct, I carved up his biceps and triceps.
The arm dangled uselessly by his side. His eyes flashed with surprise, registering that I was barely five-six before they went blank.
Then he crumpled into a bloody mess.
No one said anything until I broke the ice with, “Oh shit.”
I dropped the Reaper’s Switch. The duct taped handle bounced softly against the hard ground. A patron tried to snatch it away to defuse the situation. I hit her with a cold arm shiv in the throat, and she dropped like a rasping pile of bricks.
Everyone in the Loaded Gun stared at me.
Cross rose unsteadily from the ruined table, spit out a broken tooth and laughed. “Someone’s been training hard.”
Except I hadn’t.
I hastily pocketed the Reaper’s Switch. My hands didn’t look any different, but they’d performed literally miraculous feats.
Then the razor-sharp clarity dissipated, suddenly shoved aside by the vodka. I righted myself on a stool before checking on Cross.
My face buzzed as I asked, “What—what, well…are you fucking following me?”
His golden-flecked eyes danced with a bitter anger. “Don’t flatter yourself, Eden.”
I could see he was wasted.
“What about this guy?” I pointed at the wreck of a man lying behind me. If odds had been posted on a head-to-head fight, I would’ve taken the other guy ten out of ten times.
“He just bumped into the wrong person.” Cross’s right cheek was swollen to the size of a baseball. It’d all be healed within the hour, but it was still a dumb fight to pick, drunk or no.
“Clearly.” I extended my hand, but he just smirked. “Have it your way.”
When I turned to leave, I bumped into another very large man. Larger than the one I had just felled—and more familiar, too. Magnus looked down at me, his trunk-like arms crossed in consternation. Two sigils—a bolt glowing electric white and a hammer blazing like a forge—shone from his thick neck. Blonde hair cut into a mohawk completed the visage of a fearsome Nordic warrior.
He was technically a dwarf Jötun—a giant, for the uninitiated—cast out by his clan for being the runt of the litter. But to a normal human, he looked like a grizzly bear.
I said, “I still have a drink at the bar, if you don’t mind.” I could see Sierra over there with a wide-eyed holy shit look on her face.
That made two of us.
“You assaulted a customer, Eden.” He didn’t blin
k. “And you have been banned from this establishment already. Twice.”
I gave him a flippant nod. “Thought we were cool, since, you know, we’re on the same team and all.”
The allusion to our little Drake treasure hunting crew—of which I remained an extremely reluctant member—made him flinch.
“And you, Dante.” Instead of looking around me, the giant simply peered over me, at Cross lying amidst the broken remnants of the table. “You have been drinking more than your fill since yesterday afternoon.”
It clicked. Cross had been drowning his Tamara sorrows here, playing the part of a sad cliché. Running into him had been pure chance.
That was a relief. I had enough assholes keeping tabs on me as-is.
Cross muttered, “Twat.”
Magnus said, “You should hold your tongue, Dante. Lest it wind up on the floor.”
“Bring it, fat man.”
Three sheets weren’t nearly enough to describe Cross.
Magnus’s sigils glowed, but he declined to engage further. Instead, he said to me, “You understand this establishment is a special place, Eden.”
Magnus’s forearms flexed.
“Sacred.” I tried to step by the massive man. Magnus moved to block my path, and I smacked into a wall of living granite. “All right, buddy, good talk. Time for me to hit the old dusty trail.”
I briefly wondered if I could pull off a second carving seminar. But my arms were heavy, slowed by liquor and lingering fatigue.
Had sheer adrenaline triggered some dormant instincts?
Doubtful. If I’d possessed any talent for fighting, I wouldn’t have bothered getting good with words.
“When rules are broken, there must be consequences,” Magnus said. “Otherwise, rules carry no meaning.”
“It was just a bar fight, man.” I glanced at the bloodied man. Just a bar fight might’ve been stretching the truth. Someone should’ve probably been checking his pulse. “Not a big fucking deal.”
“A pattern of behavior, however, is a big deal.” Magnus drew in a large breath, like he was readying the hammer. “And casting dangerous magic on yourself and entering a public venue is beyond irresponsible.”
I didn’t like the sound of that.
Not the irresponsible part. Drunk or not, that was about par for the course.
“Repeat that bit about dangerous magic,” I said.
“Your lies will catch up with you one day.”
Sierra wobbled off the stool—lightweight that she was—and screamed at Magnus, “Hey, you bastard. Leave my sister alone.”
The dregs of a second Cosmo—complete with glass—came hurtling through the air. It shattered on impact with Magnus’s shoulder.
The dwarf giant didn’t flinch as he picked two-inch-long slivers of glass out of his skin.
Sierra settled back on the stool, her big blue eyes narrowing as her drunken brain attempted to process what was going on.
“It must run in the family,” Magnus said drily, netting a few nervous laughs from the peanut gallery. “And what is the saying? Third time is a charm?”
If I’d known breaking the rules a third time would’ve jammed me up like this, I would’ve gone to a different bar.
“I work with you, dude.” Jamming up your associates was dumbassery. But no, this big idiot had rules, and a whole stupid idea of what the Loaded Gun was about—other than overpriced drinks and atrocious decorations.
Magnus said, “Everyone must abide by the same rules. Associates most of all.”
This was a hill he was prepared to die on.
Clarity shot through the vodka fog like a hard slap. “I assume the two of them just racked up a couple infractions?” I resisted the urge to use bunny quotes around infractions as I gestured first to my sister and then to Cross.
Magnus nodded seriously.
Did I mention I hated this damn place?
“Tell you what,” I said, “Wipe out their transgressions, I’ll accept whatever consequences you want.”
I figured that would mean forking over the treasure map or doing some stupid errand for him. Maybe hooking him up with a soul or two.
Not optimal, but workable solutions.
Instead Magnus said, “Then we shall see how dangerous your magic truly is down in the arena, Eden Hunter.”
32
The sub-basement of the Loaded Gun featured magical cage match fights that drew large, raucous crowds—and heavy betting action. For all of Magnus’s rules, evidence of them was sparse in the blood-stained ring, where a spindly wizard was beating his much larger opponent with a staff.
I’d never ventured into this sweaty, fetid hell, but it was immediately clear these fights were Magnus’s main source of income. This place was illegal, even by the standards of the island. No doubt why he had a zero shenanigans policy in the topside bar: Avoiding unnecessary heat kept the lights on.
I wove through the bloodthirsty crowd, following the giant. Sierra and Cross had dragged themselves out of the Loaded Gun, tails between their legs. It would’ve been a lie to say I felt solace in them being safe.
A violent crack erupted from the cage. It didn’t sound like wood.
The throng of drunks surged around me, cheering and dousing my t-shirt in beer.
I yelled over the melee, “So, you used up all your rules for upstairs, huh?”
Magnus didn’t reply. We arrived at the mouth of a tunnel. From the even thicker smell of sweat, I surmised it was the locker room.
“Your fight will be next, Eden. Win, and your debts are settled.”
“Debts? Look, asshole, I don’t owe you—”
“Lose, and, well…” His massive neck slowly turned toward the arena. I’m sure he could see the fight from here. For me, there were thirty or forty bodies blocking my view of the festivities.
Before I could come up with a clever response, Magnus plunged into the crowd.
I stared into the mouth of the tunnel, rooted to the ground.
Fear has a way of cleaning the synapses, like smelling salts after getting your bell rung.
There was no way out other than through that cage.
Just what I needed with the DSA about to napalm the island, and the murderers running free.
I hunched my shoulders, trying to blend into the scenery as I ducked into the ladies’ locker room.
It was almost full, since fight night was just getting started. I’d heard the brawls ran well past midnight.
Souls smacked me in the mouth as I glanced at the gathered fighters—a vampire, werewolf, sorceress—all more powerful than me. But that wasn’t saying much. I was basically human, with the added ability to wield one very specific cutting instrument.
Their eyes snapped up, sensing fresh blood.
It wasn’t a friendly welcome.
I slunk to a stool seated by a row of rusted sinks, away from the other fighters. No sooner had I settled in did a familiar—and unwelcome face—emerge from a row of chipped lockers.
“Fans need to wait outside, Hunter.” Rayna Denton’s flat stomach flexed in the dingy light. Her stiletto boots had been replaced with cross trainers, but she looked no less formidable.
Her shifter half, which she normally kept cloaked, came across loud, feral, and clear.
I tasted her soul, but the flavor adjusting quickly. Always changing forms, like water turning to steam.
And she called me an enigma.
I said, “Won’t fighting ruin your manicure?”
She double-banded her blonde hair into a tight ponytail. “You aren’t down here looking for a match, are you?”
Her too-white teeth gleamed, suggesting she thought the notion funny.
“Think I should lace up the gloves?”
“You wouldn’t last two minutes in the cage.”
“Never did put much stock in shrinks, anyway.” I kicked at a chipped floor tile, trying to dislodge it.
“Seriously, Hunter, what the hell are you doing down here? You should be working th
e case.”
I saw my way out, then. No fighting required. And using Rayna Denton as the escape hatch?
All the sweeter.
I let a sly smile creep over my face. “Could be a soul or two lingering after the carnage.”
“Death matches aren’t allowed.”
“News to me,” I said, still seemingly focused on the tile. “But I won’t tell.”
“Primordial beasts have…urges, Hunter.”
So the death match rumors were true. I maintained the plastic smile as my brain screamed, Get the hell out! Too bad I couldn’t leave unless Rayna got me a hall pass.
“Not here to judge.” The tile cracked free and I reached down to pick it up. “Just pick up the pieces.”
She took the opportunity to lean into my ear, so that no one else could hear. “You’ve got a lead, don’t you? On this whole Deadwood, Williams, and Johns mess.”
I pretended to look surprised.
“Agent Taylor filled me in on your antics, Hunter. I’m his superior.”
So the boy scout had confessed all his sins. Guess his penance was a day’s worth of paperwork purgatory.
“Hunting leads in a dump like this?” I made a big show of glancing around the locker room. A lot of scars, bruises, and fresh cuts. “Doubtful.”
“Cut the crap, Hunter. I go on in ten.”
I suppressed a real grin. I’d baited the hook without her even knowing, and she’d chomped down with those beautiful teeth. To make things sweeter, I was slated to go up against her in the cage. As much as the opportunity to kick her veneers in was tempting, the inverse was more likely to happen—I’d get my very real teeth shattered by Taekwondo, jujitsu, or whatever multi-syllabic martial art she studied.
I’d actually fought her once before—upstairs.
She’d been kicking my ass before Magnus had zapped her with a thunderbolt spell.
I doubted a rematch would change things. But then again, maybe with this “dangerous magic” flowing through my veins…
Nope, way safer to con her.
“I’d prefer to work this one with Kai,” I said, playing the loyalty card.
She wasn’t having that. “Remember our chat at the office?”
“I relished every second of it.”
“Then you will recall what I explained about withholding information.”
Soul Fire Page 14
