by Jane Kindred
Rhea shrugged, pulling her hand out of Theia’s and hugging her arms. “I’ve missed you, too. But you’re the one who shut me out.”
“What?” Theia looked genuinely confused. “Rhe—”
“We never kept things from each other before. But you knew about Dad, and you knew about our other sisters, and you kept it from me. We shared everything. And now I feel like I don’t even know you.”
The hurt in Theia’s eyes was palpable. “Rhea—”
“You can’t make things right by giving me sad eyes, Theia. I’m sorry if that hurts you. But you hurt me, and you’re just going to have to live with the way that makes you feel.” Rhea started down the hallway but turned back before she reached the living room. “And also? I don’t know who you went to for that Lilith tattoo, but they messed up the lines.”
Belatedly, Theia covered the inside of her forearm with her palm, and Rhea turned and rejoined the gathering.
Chapter 22
Leo glanced over at Rhea as he drove her home after the gathering wound down. Though she’d argued the point briefly, she’d been in no condition to drive, amply demonstrated by nodding off as soon as they hit the road. He’d wanted to talk to her about the other Leo, but that would have to wait.
He chafed against the idea of being bound once again, but he had to believe her when she swore she hadn’t done it herself. He had to believe her, because if she would lie to him—this beautiful contradiction of soft and hard, fierce and vulnerable, sarcastic and sensual presently slumped in the seat beside him with a bit of drool on her cheek—if she could lie to him, there was nothing worth desiring in the universe. Everything was pointless rot and decay, and he was nothing but a revenant reanimated by Kára to no purpose.
And as he’d said to her earlier, if he had to be bound to someone, he would want it to be Rhea. The new ink in Mjölnir on his right arm tingled with that sense of rightness he’d felt as she’d tattooed his skin. Skin that might have been the other Leo’s by morning if not for the fire. He couldn’t bear the thought of that insufferable version of him being with Rhea in his place, bound to his Rhea by the Valkyrie’s magic. But he had the skin now. And he had Rhea. And even if he was a stupid, besotted fool without a soul, he wanted to be hers. The question was whether he was enough for her, or whether she would always be seeking the other. But he wasn’t about to give up the skin now that he had it.
He tried to rouse her when they arrived at her apartment, managing to get her out of the car and briefly onto her feet before she went boneless and floppy and he had to pick her up and carry her inside. Leo set her on the bed, and she murmured something and curled into a ball like a cat. With a little nudging, he was able to tug the sheet from the unmade bed from beneath her. He took off her fluffy boots and covered her before removing his own boots and climbing in beside her.
Something poked his hip at his back pocket, and it wasn’t his phone. Leo worked the item out of his pants—the box of condoms. He set it on the bedside table with a sigh. Eventually, he hoped, they’d actually have a chance to use them.
* * *
Rhea’s sleep was uneasy. A shadowy presence followed her through dark corridors and curtained, labyrinthine places out into the night, where the streets were unlit and empty and led to an endless succession of parking lots on which the ground tilted and swayed. The unpopulated landscape eventually morphed into a macabre carnival that remained in total darkness while the presence pursued her onto carousels and Tilt-A-Whirls, always one seat behind her, no one else on the rides. The shadow seemed to have been always there, always in the background, waiting for its moment.
She woke around three to find herself in bed at home, with Leo asleep beside her. Her phone had buzzed in her pocket. Rhea got up to use the bathroom and opened the message as she sat on the toilet, yawning.
This is important. Don’t delete.
What was Theia up to now?
Come to the Chapel of the Holy Cross.
What in the world? She sure as hell wasn’t going to drive up to the Chapel of the Holy Cross at three in the morning.
Another message popped up before she could fire off her terse refusal. I have your fylgja.
Rhea stared at the text. What was she talking about? Had Phoebe told Theia Rafe’s theory about Vixen being her fylgja? And how could Theia “have” Vixen? There was no way Theia could capture a Valkyrie. More to the point, why would she?
Something about the wording, beyond the oddness of the request, was off. A feeling of dread settled in her stomach. Theia? Is this you?
The screen showed a message in progress for several interminable seconds. Perhaps I should have said, “I have your doppelgänger.” It’s remarkable how genes dictate biological destiny, isn’t it? But I suppose you have your own fingerprints. Nature is not fooled.
Rhea’s thumbs were shaking as she typed. Who is this?
Let’s just call me Skuld for now. A laughing emoji followed. That was an unintentional play on words. But think of me as your destiny: that which is happening. And her destiny. I see you share a tattoo.
Rhea began typing a furious reply, as if words could somehow bridge the physical distance to intimidate whoever this was, but another message interrupted.
No more talk. Do not contact anyone. Do not wake the soulless munr. Come alone.
Rhea sat trembling before getting up to pad carefully into the bedroom and grab her boots from beside the bed. Leo didn’t stir. For a few panicked minutes after searching the top of the bureau she thought he must have the car keys in his pocket, but she discovered them in the living room lying on the coffee table. She let herself out quietly and descended the stairs to the parking lot to start the car, sick with anxiety while she waited for the window to defog enough to drive.
As she pulled out of her space, she saw something dark in the shadows, and her heart leaped into her throat. The presence from her dream had somehow emerged from it with her. But in the dim light of the parking lot lamps, she saw it was the wolf-dog.
Rhea hesitated. The person who’d texted her hadn’t said anything about not bringing a dog. She opened the passenger door, and the animal trotted over with purpose and jumped in, making itself comfortable on the seat as though it rode with her all the time.
“Okay, dog. I don’t know if you’re part of Leo or what, but we’re going to get my sister Theia, and I need you to be on board with this, got it?”
The dog regarded her with a patient gaze. She supposed that was all the answer she was going to get.
The darkness was almost total as she wound through the hills toward the highway, as if the dream had followed her into reality. At least the snow had stopped, though it left a chilly, damp air and a slick of ice on the road, forcing her to drive more carefully than usual, when she wanted to be reckless and fast.
“So, you’re not like Vixen, are you? I mean, you don’t talk, do you?” She glanced at the dog. “Then again, you look like an actual, normal wolf-dog, not a creepy, upright, oversexed fox, so I’m guessing you don’t.”
No response.
“I still don’t know what a fylgja does, exactly. They say if you see your own, it’s a portent of death, but you’re not mine, so I’m hoping we’re cool. Anyway, mine is apparently my own twin, and I’ve been seeing her my entire life, so I don’t think that necessarily bears out.”
The only sound was the soft hum of the heater and the quiet whir of the wheels against the highway.
“Maybe you have some of Leo’s consciousness. I don’t really get how this whole thing works. But you led me to the hugr, so he certainly doesn’t share your consciousness while you’re separate or he’d know you had. Not that I’m trying to keep it from him. You. I mean, I guess Leo knows now anyway because he heard me talking to Phoebe.”
She was possibly losing it a little bit. What if this was some
random stray that happened to be hanging around her car? Rhea gripped the wheel as she turned onto the winding road leading toward the hillside into which the cross-shaped chapel was built. Wherever the dog had come from, she needed to keep talking to stave off the fear of what was happening to Theia. Who cared whether it was really Leo’s fylgja?
“I hope you can understand that I only want what’s best for you. I don’t want you to be lost or broken. And Kára...who knows what she wants? I mean, she wants you, obviously. Or him. Whatever.”
She’d passed through Sedona proper already and had reached the turnoff onto the twisting drive up to the hilltop where the chapel perched between red buttes that appeared gray and flat in the darkness. A gate blocked the road, apparently intended to discourage visitors after hours. Except whoever had taken Theia had obviously gotten through. Unless he’d walked all the way up the hill. Maybe that’s what she should do. There weren’t any other cars parked here, but Theia’s kidnapper could have parked on a side road.
Rhea stopped on the shoulder and turned to the dog. “I guess this is where I get out.” But as she spoke, the gate creaked in the silence and swung open. “Or not.” She started through slowly, afraid someone was going to come running out to stop her, afraid something terrible was waiting on the other side. Nothing was, and no one did. Rhea continued up the hill, her high beams illuminating only the two hundred or so feet ahead of her. It was like her dreamscape.
After she’d parked at the top, Rhea sat in the car trying to breathe, trying not to be terrified. She had to be able to face this, whatever it was, for Theia.
The dog growled softly, staring at nothing.
“That’s not helping, dog.”
Rhea turned off the engine and clutched the pepper spray in her hand, heart battering her chest as she opened the door. The dog leaped over her, nearly giving her a heart attack, and landed on the tarmac, where it paced as if keeping guard, still softly growling. She got out. The dog flanked her. She felt a little braver with the wolf-dog beside her.
Another metal guard on a hinged post was positioned across the walkway before the chapel. The dog went over it, and Rhea went around it. The chapel was dark. What if somebody was just yanking her chain? The place was locked up tight. She turned to ask the dog its opinion, but it was gone. Great. Abandon me now, weird fylgja wolf-dog.
As she pondered the darkened chapel, one of the glass doors swung slowly open.
Rhea swallowed, her palms sweating. “Hello?”
Flickering candlelight she hadn’t noticed through the tinted door illuminated the altar beneath the towering cross that formed the four panes of the far window. Someone with a familiar silhouette was seated on the front row of benches, facing the altar.
“Theia?”
A figure moved in the shadows beside the cross. “Thank you for following instructions.” The figure emerged before the altar.
Rhea blinked, confused. “Mr. Dressler?”
“Please. Call me Brock. Come have a seat with your lovely doppelgänger and let’s have a chat.”
How could he have hidden this intent from her when she’d read him?
“The thing about second sight,” said Dressler as if he’d read her mind, “is that it’s painfully obvious when it’s being used on someone else who also possesses it.” He gestured to the pew. “Please sit. This won’t take long, and I’m not interested in harming you. I just need something you have.”
Rhea walked slowly up the aisle, the pepper spray cap still flipped up.
Dressler nodded toward it. “You won’t need that. I promise. But keep it if it makes you more comfortable.”
“If it makes you uncomfortable, I’m keeping it.” She’d reached the front. On the pew, Theia stared ahead with a vacant expression, not bound or gagged, just...empty. “What did you do to her?”
“She’s in a trance state. She’ll be fine. Once I say so.”
Rhea sat beside her and took Theia’s hand, to no reaction. She glared daggers at Dressler. “What the hell do you want?”
“First of all, let me say how pleased I am with the tattoo.” He folded back his sleeve, showing her the healing ink: I am. I think. I will. “You do excellent work. I wouldn’t be surprised if the fire turns out to have been only a momentary blip in your budding career.”
“Great. You can give me five stars on Yelp.”
He smiled, somehow managing to seem genuinely nice despite having abducted her sister to use as bait. Rhea fiddled with the pepper spray lid as Dressler turned to the altar and picked up some kind of short-handled blade. Maybe it was an athame, although this was the wrong kind of altar.
“What I want is very little. Just a drop of your blood.”
Rhea laughed, though her skin had gone clammy. “Is that all?”
“The key is to take it with this.” He held up the blade in the candlelight. The handle was a broken stick, and the hammered metal tip gleamed like gold. “It took me many years to track this down. This is the Holy Lance that pierced Christ’s side on the cross. Adolf Hitler had it during the war, and afterward, it was supposed to have been returned to its reliquary in Vienna’s Hofburg Palace. But I went there to acquire it shortly after the war, and I knew immediately it was a fake.”
“Shortly after what war?”
“World War II, of course.”
“I see. And you’re...?”
“Very well preserved.” Dressler grinned. “You see, I used the lance myself while it was in the Führer’s possession. It was said to bestow immortality. Which may be true, since here I am. Unfortunately, a prick with it also results in an unhealable wound. And more than a prick, well...let’s say Adolf wasn’t long for this world anyway when he shot himself in the head.” He rolled his sleeve higher, revealing a gauze bandage taped above his elbow, and pulled the tape away. The smell that emanated from what looked like a necrotic sore nearly made Rhea vomit. Dressler grimaced. “Not pretty, is it?” He covered it again, somehow masking the smell, to her relief.
“So you gave yourself a little prick and now you’re rotting. What does that have to do with me?”
“You have the magic ingredient to heal the wound for good—the blood of the first demon.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s extremely diluted by now.”
“Doesn’t matter. As evidenced by the gifts you and your sisters possess, its power is still quite strong.” He stepped toward her.
Rhea raised the pepper spray. “I thought you said that thing was a fake.”
“This? No.” Dressler turned the relic in his hand. “This I recovered several months ago with the help of a friend.” He smiled. “A necromancer.”
No. Effing. Way. Would that asshole never go away? “Let me guess. His name is Carter Hamilton.”
“The very same. He’s the one who told me about you and your six lovely sisters full of demon blood. He’d hoped to have two or three of you in his thrall by now, but he’s greedy. And a bit uncouth in his magical methods. Frankly, he’s nuts.” He wasn’t going to get any argument from her there. “Like I said, all I need is a drop.”
“And you think I’m going to give you one.”
“You forget I have second sight myself. I know you are.”
“Why did you choose me? I mean, I’d rather you didn’t choose any of us, but you already had Theia. Why didn’t you take a drop from her?”
“Your twin was my first target. We ruled out the three half siblings. They have a different strain, unpredictable. And Phoebe and Ione, Carter felt, would give me too much of a fight, particularly with their dragon consorts. You two, on the other hand—you’re very easy to manipulate. I don’t mean that as an insult. You’re just more trusting. Perhaps your older sisters have shielded you from the ugly realities of the world. Or perhaps they had it harder losing your parents in their teens. And then there w
as one more crucial element.”
Rhea’s hand was getting stiff gripping the spray can. “And what would that be?”
“The Viking.”
“So you were stalking him.”
“I wouldn’t call it stalking. I learned of his existence before the war, when I was a leader in the Hitlerjugend. He was a legend. The warrior who couldn’t die, cursed to lead Odin’s Hunt. I saw it once, you know. Those wild horses whinnying like banshees, the ghostly riders. Their appearance changes with the time and the place. When I saw them, they looked like SS officers. They’d come for the Führer, in fact. They smelled the stench of dark magic on him. The funny thing is, Hitler didn’t even believe in the relic. He’d cut himself to show it was nonsense. But as these things often go, before they could get close enough to him, he did the job himself.”
Rhea’s hand was cramping. “That’s a lovely story. I still don’t see what Leo has to do with my blood.”
“It’s not that he has anything to do with your blood, per se. It’s that, together, his blood and your blood will give me what I need—the chance at true immortality. And I already have his. But the most important thing you did for me where Leo is concerned was separating him from his hugr, which is crucial to my future aims. I have plans for the hugr.”
Rhea finally connected the dots. “You set that fire.”
“It was a little desperate, I admit, but I was out of time. I would have had to wait yet another year for an opportunity, and this damn wound is becoming unbearable.” He took another step toward her.
Rhea stood and aimed. “If you think I’m going to let you stab me with that thing and take on an unhealable wound, you’re out of your goddamned mind.”
“Oh, but that’s the beauty of it. Your blood mitigates the effects of the physical corruption. And I’m not going to stab you. I only need a finger prick. Which you are going to give me.”
Rhea opened her mouth to tell him where he could shove his Holy Lance, but a smell far worse than his rotting wound suddenly filled the air, making her stomach convulse and her head swim. She grabbed for the pew to steady herself, but it was too low, and she dropped onto the seat beside Theia, who seemed unaffected by the stench.
