“Does this explain things enough?” Saiman asked. “Or do I need to spell it out, Grigorii?”
“You’re her?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t believe it.”
Saiman sighed. “Would you like me to list your preferred positions, in the order you typically enjoy them? Shall we speak of intimate things? I could recite most of our conversations word for word, I do have a very precise memory.”
They stared at each other.
“It was all a lie,” Grigorii said finally.
“I call it subterfuge, but yes, in essence, the marriage was a sham. You were set up from the beginning. I was Yulya. I was also Siren and Alyssa, so if you decide to visit that particular house of ill repute again, don’t look for either.”
Oh God.
The glow vanished. Saiman turned to me. “Back to our question. Why?”
“That man loved you enough to risk his own neck to negotiate your release. You just destroyed him, in passing, because you were in a hurry. And you want to know why. If you did that to him, there’s no telling what you’d do to me. Sex is about physical attraction, yes, but it’s also about trust. I don’t trust you. You’re completely self-absorbed and egoistic. You offer nothing I want.”
“Sex is driven by physical attraction. Given the right stimulus, you will sleep with me. I simply have to present you with a shape you can’t resist.”
Saiman jerked, as if struck by a whip, and crashed to the floor. His feet drummed the carpet, breaking the herbs and fledgling ferns. Wild convulsions tore at his body. A blink and he was a mess of arms and legs and bodies. My stomach gave up, and I vomited into the sink.
Ordinarily I’d be on top of him, jamming something in his mouth to keep him from biting himself, but given that he changed shapes as if there were no tomorrow, finding his mouth was a bit problematic.
“Saiman? Talk to me.”
“The acorn . . . It’s coming. Must . . . Get . . . Roof.”
Roof? No roof. We were in the apartment, shielded by a ward. On the roof we’d be sitting ducks. “We can’t do that.”
“Oak . . . Large . . . Cave-in.”
Oh hell. Would it have killed him to mention that earlier? “I need you to walk. You’re too heavy and I can’t carry you while you convulse.”
Little by little, the shudders died. Saiman staggered to his feet. He was back to the unremarkable man I’d first found in the bedroom. His stomach had grown to ridiculous proportions. If he were pregnant, he’d be twelve months along.
“We’ll make a run for it,” I told him.
A faint scratch made me spin. An old man hung outside the window, suspended on a rope. Gaunt, his white beard flapping in the wind, he peered through the glass straight at me. In the split second we looked at each other, twelve narrow stalks unfurled from his neck, spreading into a corona around his head, like a nimbus around the face of a Russian icon. A bulb tipped each stock. A hovala. Shit.
I grabbed Saiman and threw him at the door.
The bulbs opened.
Blinding light flooded the apartment, hiding the world in a white haze. The window behind me exploded. I could barely see. “Stay behind me.”
Shapes dashed through the haze.
I slashed. Slayer connected, encountering resistance. Sharp ice stabbed my left side. I reversed the strike and slashed again. The shape before me crumpled. The second attacker struck. I dodged left on instinct and stabbed my blade at his side. Bone and muscle. Got him between the lower ribs. A hoarse scream lashed my ears. I twisted the blade, ripping the organs, and withdrew.
The hovala hissed at the window. I was still blind.
Behind me the lock clicked. “No!”
I groped for Saiman and hit my forearm on the open door. He ran. Into the hallway, where he was an easy target. I lost my body. Goddamn it.
I sprinted into the hallway, trying to blink the haze from eyes. The stairs were to the left. I ran, half-blind, grabbed the door, and dashed up the stairs.
The blinding flare finally cleared. I hit the door, burst onto the roof, and took a kick to the ribs. Bones crunched. I fell left and rolled to my feet. A woman stood by the door, arms held in a trademark tae kwon do cat stance.
To the right, an older man grappled with Saiman. Six others watched.
The woman sprang into a kick. It was a lovely kick, strong with good liftoff. I sidestepped and struck. By the time she landed, I’d cut her twice. She fell in a crumpled heap.
I flicked the blood off my saber and headed for Saiman.
“You’re Voron’s kid,” one of the men said. “We have no problem with you. Pavel’s entitled. His son just threw himself off the roof.”
Ten to a million the son’s name was Grigorii.
I kept coming. The two men ripped at each other, grappling and snarling like two wild animals. I was five feet away when Pavel head-butted Saiman, jerking his right arm free. A knife flashed; I lunged and saw Pavel slice across Saiman’s distended gut. A bloody clump fell, and I caught it with my left hand purely on instinct.
Magic punched my arm. Pale glow erupted from my fist.
Saiman twisted and stabbed something at Pavel’s right eye. The volkhv stumbled back, a bloody pencil protruding from his eye socket. For a long moment he stood, huge mouth gaping, and then he toppled like a log. Saiman spun about. The muscles of his stomach collapsed, folding, knitting together, turning into a flat washboard wall.
The whole thing took less than three seconds.
I opened my fist. A small gold acorn lay on my palm.
The golden shell cracked. A sliver of green thrust its way up. The acorn rolled off my hand. The green shoot thickened, twisted, surging higher and higher. The air roared like a tornado. Saiman howled, a sound of pure rage. I grabbed him and dragged him with me to the stairs. On the other side, volkhvi ran for the edge of the roof.
The shoot grew, turning dark, sprouting branches, leaves, and bark. Magic roiled.
“It was supposed to be mine,” Saiman snarled. “Mine!”
Light flashed. The roaring ceased.
A colossal oak stood in the middle of the roof, as tall as the building itself, its roots spilling on both sides of the high-rise. Tiny lights fluttered between its branches, each wavy leaf as big as my head. Birds sang in the foliage. A huge metal chain bound the enormous trunk, its links so thick, I could’ve lain down on it. A feeling of complete peace came over me. All my troubles melted into the distance. My pain dissolved. The air tasted sweet, and I drank it in.
At the other side of the roof, the volkhvi knelt.
Metal clinked. A black creature came walking down the bottom loop. As big as a horse, its fur long and black, it walked softly, gripping the links with razor-sharp claws. Its head was that of a lynx. Tall tufts of black fur decorated its ears, and a long black beard stretched from its chin. Its eyes glowed, lit from within.
The cat paused and looked at me. The big maw opened, showing me a forest of white teeth, long and sharp like knives.
“Ask.”
I blinked.
“You were the last to hold the acorn,” Saiman whispered. “You must ask the question or it will kill all of us.”
The cat showed me its teeth again.
For anything I asked, there would be a price.
“Ask,” the cat said, its voice laced with an unearthly snarl.
“Ask, Kate,” Saiman prompted.
“Ask!” one of the volkhvi called out.
I took a deep breath.
The cat leaned forward in anticipation.
“Would you like some milk?”
The cat smiled wider. “Yes.”
Saiman groaned.
“I’ll be right back.”
I dashed down the stairs. Three minutes later, the cat lapped milk from Saiman’s crystal punch bowl.
“You could’ve asked anything,” the creature said between laps.
“But you would’ve taken everything,” I told it. “This way all it cost
me is a little bit of milk.”
* * *
In the morning Peters came to relieve me. Not that he had a particularly difficult job. After the oak disappeared, the volkhvi decided that since both Pavel and Grigorii were dead, all accounts were settled and it was time to call it quits. As soon as we returned to the apartment, Saiman locked himself in the bedroom and refused to come out. The loss of the acorn hit him pretty hard. Just as well. I handed my fussy client off to Peters, retrieved Peggy, and headed back to the Guild.
All in all I’d done spectacularly well, I decided. I lost the client for at least two minutes, let him get his stomach ripped open, watched him stab his attacker in the eye, which was definitely something he shouldn’t have had to do, and cost him his special acorn and roughly five months of work. The fact that my client turned out to be a scumbag and a sexual deviant really had no bearing on the matter.
Some bodyguard I made. Yay. Whoopee. I got to the Guild, surrendered Peggy, and filled out my paperwork. You win some, you lose some. At least Saiman survived. I wouldn’t get paid, but I didn’t end the job with a dead client on my hands.
I grabbed my crap and headed for the doors.
“Kate,” the clerk called from the counter.
I turned. Nobody remembered the clerk’s name. He was just “the clerk.”
He waved an envelope at me. “Money.”
I turned on my foot. “Money?”
“For the job. Client called. He says he’d like to work exclusively with you from now on. What did the two of you do all night?”
“We argued philosophy.” I swiped the envelope and counted the bills. Three grand. What do you know?
I stepped out the doors into an overcast morning. I had been awake for over thirty-six hours. I just wanted to find a quiet spot, curl up, and shut out the world.
A tall, lean man strode to me, tossing waist-long black hair out of the way. He walked like a dancer, and his face would stop traffic. I looked into his blue eyes and saw a familiar smugness in their depths. “Hello, Saiman.”
“How did you know?”
I shrugged and headed on my way.
“Perhaps we can work out a deal,” he said, matching my steps. “I have no intentions of losing that bet. I will find a form you can’t resist.”
“Good luck.”
“I’m guessing you’ll try to avoid me, which would make my victory a bit difficult.”
“Bingo.”
“That’s why I decided to give you an incentive you can’t refuse. I’m giving you a sixty percent discount on my services. It’s an unbelievable deal.”
I laughed. If he thought I’d pay him twenty-six dollars a minute for his time, he was out of luck.
“Laugh now.” Saiman smiled. “But sooner or later you’ll require my expertise.”
He stopped. I kept on walking, into the dreary sunrise. I had three thousand dollars and some chocolate to buy.
COPYRIGHT
This ebook is licensed to you for your personal enjoyment only.
This ebook may not be sold, shared, or given away.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the writer’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Retribution Clause was originally published in the anthology, Hex Appeal.
Copyright © 2012 by Ilona Andrews
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
No part of this work may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
RETRIBUTION CLAUSE
Adam Talford closed his eyes and wished he were somewhere else. Somewhere warm. Where cool waves lapped hot yellow sand, where strange flowers bloomed, and birdsong filled the air.
“Take off the watch! Now!” a male voice barked into his ear. “You think I am fucking with you? You think I am playing? I’ll rip your flesh off your body and make myself a skin suit.”
Adam opened his eyes. The three thugs who pinned him to the brick wall looked half-starved, like mongrel dogs who’d been prowling the alley, feeding on garbage.
He should never have wandered into this side of Philadelphia, not in the evening, and especially not while the magic was up. This was Firefern Road, a place where the refuse of the city hid out among the ruins of the ravaged buildings, gnawed by magic to ugly nubs of brick and concrete. The real predators stalked their prey elsewhere, looking for bigger and meatier scores. Firefern Road sheltered scavengers, desperate and savage, eager to bite, but only when the odds were on their side.
Unfortunately, he had no choice.
“You have the cash,” Adam said, keeping his voice low. “Take it and go. It’s a cheap watch. You won’t get any money for it.”
The larger of the thugs pulled him from the wall and slammed him back into the bricks. The man bent over him, folding his six-foot-two frame down to Adam’s five feet five inches, so their faces were level, forcing Adam to stare straight into his eyes. Adam looked into their blue depths and glimpsed a spark of vicious glee. It wasn’t about the money anymore. It was about domination, humiliation, and inflicting pain. They would beat him just for the fun of it.
“The watch, you little bitch,” the thug ordered.
“No,” Adam said quietly.
A muscular forearm smashed into his neck, cutting off his air. Bodies pressed against him. He felt fingers prying at the metal band on his narrow wrist. His heart hammered. His chest constricted.
Think of elsewhere. Think of blue waves and yellow sand …
Someone yanked at the band. The world was turning darker—his lungs demanded air. Pain shot through his limbs in sharp, burning spikes.
Blue waves … Azure … Calm … Just need to stay calm …
Cold metal broke his skin. They were trying to cut the watch off his wrist. He jerked and heard the crunch of broken glass. Two tiny watch gears flew before his eyes, sparking with residual traces of magic.
Imbeciles. They’d broken it.
The magic chain that held his body in check vanished. The calming visions of the ocean vanished, swept away by an avalanche of fury. His magic roared inside him, ancient, primal, and cold as a glacier. Frost clamped his eyebrows, falling off in tiny snowflakes. The short blond hairs rained down from his head, and pale blue strands grew in their place, falling down to his shoulders. His body surged, up and out, stretching, spilling out into its natural shape. His outer clothes tore under the pressure as his new form stretched the thick spandex suit he wore underneath to its limit. His feet ripped the cheap cloth Converse sneakers. The three small humans in front of him froze like frightened rabbits.
With a guttural roar, Adam grasped the leader by his shoulder and yanked him up. The man’s fragile collarbone broke under the pressure of his pale fingers, and the man screamed, kicking his feet. Adam brought him close, their eyes once again level. The thug trembled and fell silent, his face a terrified rigid mask. Adam knew exactly what he saw: a creature, an eight-foot-tall giant in the shape of a man, with a mane of blue hair and eyes like submerged ice.
Inside him, the rational, human part of Adam Talbot sighed and faded. Only cold and rage drove him now.
“Do you know why I wear the watch?” he snarled into the man’s face.
The thug shook his head.
“I wear it so I can keep my body in my tracking form. Because when I’m small, I don’t draw attention. I can go anywhere. Nobody pays me any notice. I’ve been tracking a man for nine days. His trail led me here. I was so close, I could smell his sweat, and the three of you ruined it for me. I can’t follow him now, can I?” He shook the man like a wet rag. “I told you to walk away. No. You didn’t listen.”
“I’ll listen,” the thug promised. “I’ll listen now.”
“Too late. You wanted to feel big and bad. Now I’ll show you what big and bad is.”
Adam hurled the human across the alley. The thug flew. Before he crashed into a brick ruin with a bone-snapping crunch, his two sidekicks turned and fled, running full speed. Adam vaulted over a garbage Dumpster to his right and gave chase.
Ten minutes later, he returned to the alley, crouched, dug through the refuse with bloody fingers, and fished out his watch. The glass and the top plate were gone, displaying the delicate innards of gears and magic. Hopelessly mangled. Just like the thug who still sagged motionless against the ruin.
The alley reeked with the scavenger stench: fear, sweat, a hint of urine, garbage. Adam rose, stretching to his full height, and raised his face to the wind. The hint of Morowitz’s scent teased him, slightly sweet and distant. The chase was over.
Dean Morowitz was a thief, and, like all thieves, he would do anything for the right price. He’d stolen a priceless necklace in a feat of outrageous luck, but he didn’t do it on his own. No, someone had hired him, and Adam was interested in the buyer much more than in the tool he had used. Breaking Morowitz’s legs would probably shed some light on his employment arrangements, but it would inevitably alarm the buyer, who’d vanish into thin air. Following the thief was a much better course of action.
Adam sighed. He had failed. Tracking the thief now would be like carrying a neon side above his head that read, POM INSURANCE ADJUSTER. He’d have to give Morowitz a day or two to cool off, then arrange for a replacement watch to hide his true form before trying to find the man again.
A mild headache scraped at the inside of Adam’s head, insistent, like a knock on his door.
He concentrated, sending a focused thought in its direction. “Yes?”
“You’re needed at the office, Mr. Talford,” a familiar female voice murmured directly into his mind.
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