Kira looked down at the papers, fighting off a shiver. “Basically. If I’ve interpreted everything right, anyway. The dagger is important because of its ability to give life as well as take it away.”
“I’m sure I’m not going to like the answer, but here goes: why would a Shadow Avatar want it? Don’t they already have stuff like this?”
“That’s something I need to find out. It can’t just be about the dagger’s ability to make its owner virtually immortal, more powerful, that sort of thing. It might have something to do with the dagger being used as a weapon for the last four thousand years. Death is what it prefers.”
“That’s all?”
Kira shook her head ruefully. “No. It has a mind of its own and supposedly if it doesn’t like its owner, it will kill him and go find another.”
Wynne let out another low whistle. “Dang, that’s harsh.”
“Harsh ain’t the word, girl, but I can’t deny that Braided Guy lost his dagger somehow and it’s found its way to me. I have to assume there’s at least a little bit of truth in everything I’ve uncovered about the dagger so far. The dagger itself showed me enough death and bloodshed the first time I touched it that it might as well be alive. There’s no way I’m letting Shadow get its hands on it.”
“And you want me to try to replicate that?”
“I want Zoo to put a little bit of magic into it, too, but nobody could begin to duplicate the way this thing feels. No offense.” She reached into the backpack again, pulled out a blade in a worn leather sheath wrapped in oilcloth. “Do you think you can use this as a base?”
Wynne unwrapped the sheath, then pulled the dagger free. “Holy crap, Kira! You want to use a real two-thousand-year-old dagger as a base for an imitation one?”
“Yeah.” It was one of her favorite daggers—the blade was worn, a plain solid bronze weapon from the late Ptolemaic period and still a valuable artifact—but its sacrifice would be worth it. “It’s the only other ivory-handled dagger I have that’s close enough. I also brought some gold you can use to cover the bronze. Can you do it?”
“Of course I can do it. God made the world in seven days. Shouldn’t be that hard for me to re-create a four-thousand-year-old half-alive dagger in . . . ” Wynne looked up. “I guess you want this yesterday?”
“I hate to do you like that, but I also know that if anyone can do it, you can. You’re that good. Even Comstock said so, when he brought the dagger to me.” She dropped her gaze for a moment. “Anyway, just let me know when you get finished. I’m going to do my best to keep the real thing suppressed for as long as possible.”
Wynne chewed on her bottom lip. “Is it going to be possible? That guy didn’t seem like he wanted to take no for an answer.”
“Then it’s time he learned. I’ll be more than happy to teach him.”
“Just be careful, okay? You shouldn’t be chasing after something like this alone.”
More worry, more concern. While she appreciated it, it was beginning to needle her. “I won’t be. Sanchez will have plenty of suits on the street policing the hybrids while I concentrate on the big bad. No matter what, I’m going to make sure that Bernie didn’t die for nothing.”
Chapter 9
What was that back there?”
“What?”
“Don’t ‘what’ me, old man.” Khefar stopped in the little open square. “We had the advantage. They wouldn’t have dared shoot up that store. We could have gotten my blade back.”
Nansee barked out a laugh. “My boy, I know you’ve been around for a while, but if you think you had the advantage over those two women, you obviously need to explore America more. Besides, she’s one of your number.”
Khefar jerked to a stop, shock racing through him. “What did you say?”
“You have another life to save, son of Nubia.”
Finally. Khefar suddenly felt the need to sit down. It had been more than forty years since he’d been given a life to add to his tally. Forty years since the last one he’d tried to protect had been murdered. Forty years since he had been given a mission to keep a human from an untimely, unjust death.
“Which one? The one pointing the gun, or the one pointing the knife?”
“The Shadowchaser.”
No, it couldn’t be. “Are you sure?”
Nansee nodded.
“I’m supposed to keep a Shadowchaser alive, with a seeker demon coming after her sooner rather than later, and I don’t even have my blade?” He cursed in frustration. “Why would I expect this to get easy?”
“You are two souls from done, warrior of the Two Lands,” the wraith reminded him. “Will you give up now, so close to rejoining your family?”
“Enough, spider. You know I’ll do what’s required of me.” After a millennium or three, he should have been immune to the trickster’s barbs. But his family had always been his sore spot, his weakness, his reason. There was no way in Light or Shadow that he would quit now, even if it meant protecting a Shadowchaser with a death wish.
He clenched his hands. The Shadowchaser was a fighter and he surely hadn’t expected to see her so calm and collected the day after the antiquity dealer’s death. She had roiled with profound grief and hot rage after she’d found him. But he clearly remembered the way she had disobeyed her superiors—and her apparent lack of respect for authority. He’d seen how she entered a nightclub that obviously served Shadow and intentionally engaged the enemy even though she was outnumbered. She was on a fast track to oblivion. He knew the signs, having experienced them himself.
And I am supposed to keep her alive?
He’d do it. He knew he had no other choice. So many years, so many lives, and finally so close to being done. Four thousand years, sixty-four thousand souls. One more opportunity.
“I’ll do what’s required of me,” he repeated, “but I have to wonder at your motives.”
“My motives?” Nansee placed a hand over the spot his heart would be if he had actually possessed such an organ. “What makes you think I have motives?”
“Because you always do. You usually don’t tell me if a life counts toward my total until after the save is done. Why tell me the Shadowchaser counts, if not for your own sadistic amusement?”
“You know me, Khefar, son of Jeru, son of Natek.” The old man grinned, white teeth brilliant pearls in the mahogany of his face. “Yours is a story for the ages. Better than Herakles, than Marco Polo, even Gilgamesh. Nearly as eventful and exciting a story as my own.”
“Still haven’t learned a thing about modesty, I see.” He looked back at the little gift shop, then resolutely turned his back. “Are you sure there aren’t some Caribbean countries you need to visit for a while?”
Nansee beamed. “My boy, you know that I am both here and there. You’re forgetting more than you’re remembering in your old age.” He leaned closer, silver hair glinting in the late afternoon sunlight. “Or is it that a certain Shadowchaser has the great warrior completely tossed off his game?”
“Don’t even start with me, old man. I will do as the gods require of me. My gods, not you.”
Nansee laughed. “Here you are, still clinging to the gods of Kemet despite all that you’ve seen and experienced.”
“The gods of Kemet are what they are, what they have always been. My lady Isis is not fickle. Unlike some West African demigods I could name.”
The old man raised his bushy white eyebrows but held his tongue. Khefar was relieved that, for once, Nansee had no rejoinder. He really didn’t want to hear anything the spider had to say. All he could think about was how close he was. After four millennia and sixty-four thousand lives, he was close to ending his torment and being free.
To earn his freedom and make his way to the Field of Reeds, he must keep only two more lives from facing final judgment before their appointed time. If he had to keep a fatally inclined Shadowchaser alive, he would do so. Whether she wanted his help or not.
Kira made her way back to the Vortex. Her mind
roiled with plans, plots, and information. She had to give Wynne time to forge a replica of the Dagger of Kheferatum. That meant she had to find a way to dodge a seeker demon as well as the dagger’s owner, and both were probably equally tenacious.
A four-thousand year-old Nubian warrior. She shook her head in amazement, questions burning through her. He was a walking, talking witness to history. The history, the stories he could share.
He’d be the perfect resource on a dig in Khartoum or Abu Simbel or Kerma. Had he been in Meroë when it was ruled by its line of powerful warrior queens? She’d done her dissertation for her masters in archaeology on the Kandakes of Meroë while at University College. How much better, she wondered, would she have done if she’d been able to interview him beforehand?
She stopped short. No. Braided Guy wanted to take the dagger from her. That made him an opponent, not a colleague. She’d have to set aside any questions concerning history and focus on those that would stop the Shadow Avatar.
She walked back up Moreland Avenue
heading north to the giant skull entrance of the Vortex. Despite the menacing exterior, the bar boasted some of the best burgers around and kept her in Tater Tots. “Hey, Kira,” the hostess greeted her. “You want up or down?”
“Hey, Shelby. Someone’s supposed to be waiting for me. Medium height and build, braids.”
“Oh, the gorgeous guy who looks like he has a board shoved up his butt?”
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
“I put him upstairs.” The hostess grinned. “Don’t think he was happy about that.”
Kira grinned back. “I bet.”
Shelby led her out to the metal staircase leading to the upstairs dining room, an area that had the feel of a covered glassed-in patio—if you could ignore the wall mural of two crossed wrenches between the teeth of a grinning helmeted skull and the two barely clothed devil ladies that sat on them.
The Nubian sat at one of the tables beneath the mural, facing the door. He looked up when they arrived, and Shel was right—Kira doubted the man had smiled since sometime in the ninth century.
“I’ll let Bobby know you’re here.”
“Thanks, Shel.”
The hostess left them. The Nubian stared at her curiously. “For a Shadowchaser, you have curious tastes in friends and food.”
“I don’t know about your eating habits, but I could say the same thing about your friend. Where’s your not-exactly-human sidekick?”
He grimaced. “Don’t let him hear you call him a sidekick. He got distracted by the musicians on the plaza. Besides, he doesn’t need to be here for this.”
“And what, exactly, is this?”
“Negotiation.” He leaned forward. “You have something that belongs to me, something very precious. I’ve been searching for it for a long time.”
Bobby interrupted them. “Y’all ready to order?”
The warrior flipped through the menu, then laid it down. “I’ll take the bison version of the steakhouse burger with onion rings.”
Kira ordered a half-pound Blue ’Shroom burger with a side of Tater Tots and a ginger beer. “What’s your name?” she asked after their waiter left.
“Excuse me?”
She stripped off her gloves, carefully bracing her elbows against the brushed metal tabletop. “You want to negotiate, fine. Negotiate all you want. But I think I have the right to know the name of the person making demands of me. I’m pretty sure even rudimentary social customs were around during your time.”
His lips tightened. “My name is Kevin. Kevin Lambert.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Are you seriously going to sit there expecting me to believe that your name is Kevin Lambert? I gotta tell ya, I find it hard to believe that ‘Kevin’ was a common name four thousand years ago.”
He remained silent while their waiter brought their drinks, then left. Then he leaned forward. “My name is Khefar, son of Jeru, son of Natek. And yes, I was born more than four millennia ago. Now that the introductions are over, may I have my dagger back?”
“I need you to answer some questions first.”
A muscle in his right cheek ticked. “I want my blade back. I’ll give you whatever you want.”
“Really?”
“You have but to name your price.”
“All right.” She leaned forward. “Bring Bernie back.”
Regret filled his features as he sat back. “I would if I could, Shadowchaser. The art dealer did not deserve to die in such a way.”
“You admit to killing Bernie?” Blue flame engulfed her hands. She drew back, clutching her hands tight beneath her chin in an effort to conceal them, though most of the other diners had extrasense of some sort.
He remained unruffled. “I didn’t kill the antiquities dealer.”
“Were you there, in the alley”—despite her effort to subdue it, blue fire crackled along her fingers, causing her beer bottle to shudder—“watching while they killed him, and didn’t try to stop it?”
“No. We arrived after you did. If I had been there earlier, I would have interceded.”
Kira stared at him for a long moment. He returned her stare, his gaze unwavering. Finally she settled back in the chair, pushing the anger and her power away. She wanted to believe him. He was the rightful owner of the dagger, after all. Or at least he had been. The ancient dagger seemed to be looking for a new owner. She wondered what the Nubian had done to make the dagger seek someone else to wield it.
She started to ask him, but their food arrived. If Bobby had done his usual magic, her burger would be safe enough to eat, but she couldn’t take any chances. She waved a hand over her plate, dissipating the aura around her food. The earlier power display had probably zapped the ginger beer, but she passed a hand over it anyway. Better safe than sprawled out on the floor.
The warrior paused, his hand hovering above his onion rings. “Why did you do that? Is something wrong with the food?”
“What? No.” She’d had to “disarm” her food for so many years that it was second nature now. For the longest time she could only eat raw fruits and vegetables that she’d harvested herself on Santa Costa, before Balm taught her how to clean her food, to rid it of the brief but sharp impressions of those who had handled it before, with a burst of extrasense.
As her stomach plaintively reminded her, it had been eight hours since the coffee and granola bar that had been her breakfast as she had researched the dagger. “It’s something I have to do so I can eat without flashing on the cook, the waitress, the dishwasher . . . even the damned cow.”
“Flashing?”
“It’s what I call what happens when I get psychic impressions from people and their possessions. I can usually tone down the hit from inanimate objects, but anything alive, well . . . ”
He picked up an onion ring, then laid it back on the plate. “Pardon my curiosity, Shadowchaser. But given the . . . ambience of this place, I think you can understand my caution.”
“I suppose so, but the food is fine. Don’t worry. If you’re worried about this place—which you shouldn’t be—does that mean you’re a Shadowchaser too?”
“No, I’m not.” He took a bite of the onion ring.
Her burger suddenly wasn’t as interesting. “So you work for Shadow? You’re an Adept?”
“I work for myself, but I’m no friend of Shadow.”
“Then what are you, besides really, really old? Are you immortal?”
“I’m not immortal in the sense that I am not subject to death. It’s . . . complicated.”
“I bet. I’d say after four thousand years or so you are close enough to immortal to call you that, whatever the complications may be.”
The warrior gave her a brief nod of acknowledgment.
“So, what else?”
“I have a mission I must complete.”
“What sort of mission?”
He shook his head. “I cannot tell you, but I need my dagger to do it.”
“Hmph.” The N
ubian definitely had a one-track mind when it came to the dagger. She couldn’t resist temptation any longer and popped a Tater Tot into her mouth. Umm, carby goodness. “So you followed me.”
“From the restaurant last night.”
“How did you know I was there? How did I even get on your radar in the first place?”
He chewed thoughtfully on his burger, as if gathering his thoughts or deciding how much information to share with her. “I can sense the trail my dagger leaves,” he finally said. “I tracked Comstock to your office, but I didn’t feel the dagger on him when he left. I assumed he left it with you, so I didn’t need to trail him any longer. You did a good job of removing evidence of your time with it, but just being close to it for a length of time is enough. I have carried that blade for millennia. I know it when I feel it.”
“Makes sense.” She looked down at her plate, oddly grateful he hadn’t witnessed Bernie’s death but uncomfortable with the thought that he’d witnessed her discovery and grief. “Do you know what killed him?”
“Seeker demon.”
“Do you know who controls it?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me.”
“Of course.”
She looked up, waited.
He smiled, a slash of pearl against mahogany. “As soon as you give my dagger back.”
“I can’t do that.”
“The dagger belongs to me.”
“I know. It was gifted to you by the god-king of the Two Lands, as reward for your prowess in battle.”
The frown lightened to confusion. “How do you know this?”
“The dagger told me.”
“The dagger told—” He leaned forward, his expression even more intense. “You touched it? It communicated with you?”
“I didn’t say it spoke freely,” she said, a little surprised by his reaction. “I had to coax it along a little. Why are you surprised?”
He shook his head in patent disbelief. “I’m surprised because you’re still functioning. My blade can be . . . temperamental.”
“I certainly wouldn’t call it warm and cuddly. But once it began to spill its secrets, it didn’t want to stop.” He didn’t have to know that she’d blacked out from information overload. He certainly didn’t need to know of the dagger’s attempts to seduce her into wielding it.
Shadow Blade Page 9
