Shadow Blade

by Seressia Glass

  “Now it’s your turn to talk,” she said, her voice as flat as her eyes. “Tell me what I want to know. How did you come to own this dagger?”

  “I was a Medjay warrior, commanding a group of archers for the king. I saved his favorite son, and he rewarded me with the dagger you hold. While I was receiving my accolades, I got word that my village was attacked. The men left behind were overwhelmed and killed. I lost my wife, my children, my mother and sisters. None were left alive. Even the animals were killed. I vowed revenge, to deal what had been dealt to me. And that is what I did.”

  The blade at his throat moved back scant centimeters. “You found the men who raided your village?”

  Four thousand years may have dulled the images in his mind, but his heart had never forgotten the pain, the anger, and the need for vengeance. “I found their villages, and I destroyed them. I made sure there would be nothing left. Nothing. And, when I was done, there was nothing. I destroyed their families and their homes, slaughtered their livestock, burned the fields, and then salted the soil so that nothing would ever grow again.”

  “That was more than avenging your family. That was annihilation. That is almost Shadow worthy.”

  “I am not of Shadow.”

  “So you tell me. So the spider tells me. But I don’t know that, do I? I don’t know what would happen were I to give you this dagger back.”

  She shifted the blade slightly. “Do you know how amused your dagger is to be on this side of you?” she asked casually. “It is thirsty and you have been stingy in letting it drink. It just wants blood; it doesn’t care whose.”

  “And that is why I need it back,” he said, forcing his tone to remain even. His muscles tensed with the need to leap up, to wrestle the blade from her. That would leave one or both of them dead. Words would have to work, and he had never been good with those. “It is a dangerous weapon and shouldn’t be held lightly.”

  She snorted. “You think this is light? Tell me, Mr. Semi-Immortal, would you stay dead if you were killed by your own blade?”

  He took a gamble, hoping to shock her enough to break the dagger’s hold. “I didn’t know Shadowchasers had a cruel streak. Where do you really stand on the Universal Balance, Kira Solomon?”

  Surprise arced across her face. She drew back, her eyes sweeping from him to the dagger to her grip on its handle and back again.

  “This wasn’t my intent,” she whispered, a tremor sweeping through her arm. “I wanted to give it back. Threatening you, holding the dagger to your throat—I didn’t want to do this. But I can’t seem to loosen my grip. Can you, can you take it from me?”

  He brought his hands up, wrapped his fingers around hers. She gasped softly at the contact, but allowed him to ease her grip.

  Finally, finally. The dagger was his again.

  Her entire body shook like she’d just come in from the cold without a coat. He brought himself up to a sitting position and placed the dagger out of sight beneath his pillow. Her eyes followed the movement, her expression flush with hunger.

  He squeezed her fingers and her gaze snapped back to his. The hunger remained. He could tell she craved both the dagger and his contact. Which did she want more?

  “You reacted so bizarrely yesterday, when I grabbed your wrist. Why?”

  “I told you that my extrasense allows me to read people and objects,” she explained, staring intently at their hands. “I also use it to defuse magic and to protect myself from hybrids and Shadowlings. Unfortunately my power can also drain energy, so I haven’t touched another human being for a long time. Most of the touching I do these days is cataloging artifacts or to kill or subdue those from Shadow.”

  What is that like for her, he wondered, touching only to kill? “I’m sorry. I know what it means to be in this world, yet apart from it.”

  Her fingers tightened on his. “But you don’t know what this is like, what this means. How are you able to touch me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know? What do you mean, you don’t know? All my life I’ve been waiting for someone I can touch without putting them into a coma and—” she broke off, pulling out of his grasp and spinning away from him.

  “Kira.” He held a hand out to her when she turned around. She gawked at it like a wary animal, then slowly approached to slip her hands into his. He stroked over the back of her hand with his thumb, noting the tremor of her fingers. Though all he’d wanted in four thousand years was to reach the end of his penance, he hadn’t been a monk. To never be able to touch another was incomprehensible to him.

  “I don’t know why you can touch me and not take my thoughts and my memories, or drain my energy. It could simply be because I’ve lived and died a thousand lifetimes. I am unique, as are you.” He shifted his hand so his fingers slid between hers. “Does the how and why of this matter so much or is the important thing the fact that you can?”

  “Yeah. Well.” She glanced away, pulled her fingers from his, stepped back. “Anansi brought a change of clothes and some other things in for you. I put the bag in the bathroom through there.” Kira pointed at the door to the bathroom. “When you’re done, come downstairs. We’ll eat and talk some more.”

  He stopped her before she made it to the stairs. “You asked me why I risked my life to save yours.”

  She paused, but didn’t turn around. “So I did. And so you told me.”

  “No, not all of it. There is more. In taking my vengeance, I became a monster. Even after that, my pain didn’t diminish. I became a mercenary, living only to fight, to inflict a measure of the pain I endured. I wanted the world to weep as my soul wept.”

  She turned slightly toward him, eyes and voice soft as she spoke. “To bleed as your loved ones bled.”

  “Yes. And had I continued on my destructive path, I might have become an Avatar to be filled by one of the Fallen. But the Light intervened.”

  “What happened?”

  “I was killed. My soul rose from my body and I could see the carnage around me, carnage I had wrought. My soul cried then, for a completely different reason. It was then that I saw Her.”

  “Who?”

  “Isis, Mother of All. She told me that the scales of my life were tilted in favor of Shadow, but it had been decided to give me a chance for redemption. All I had to do was save a life for every one that I had taken, either by my own hand or from directing armies, though I was not to know beforehand which lives counted to my tally. Only then would I be allowed to join my family in the Light.”

  “How many did you have to save?”

  “Sixty-four thousand, eight hundred and thirty-one lives.”

  “And how many are left, after four thousand years?”

  “Two.”

  The word hung in the air between them, crystalline.

  Finally she nodded. “Thank you,” she said quietly, not looking at him. “For saving me.”

  She left. He got out of bed, reaching beneath the pillow for his dagger. The glyphs gleamed in the sunlight. “You’ve given me a lot of trouble,” he said to the dagger. “But you will remain my burden to bear a while longer. And so will the Shadowchaser.”

  Chapter 13

  The spider god looked up as Kira returned. “Is our sleeping beauty awake?”

  She nodded, wondering if he knew what had transpired upstairs, how tempted she’d been. By the blade and by the man. “As you said he would be. As he himself promised.”

  Her forward motion slid to a halt. Anansi had set three places at her coffee table, denoted by three of her Moroccan floor cushions. A strip of mudcloth contrasted the oak of the table and the pale color of her serviceable dinnerware, making both look better than they really were. Brightly patterned cloth napkins were tucked beside each setting, the silverware atop them gleaming like actual silver. Her sunflower teapot and a carafe of orange juice flanked a clear vase filled with bright red flowers.

  Kira’s stomach fluttered at the orderly domesticity of the scene. Her coffee table
had often served as her dining table when it wasn’t a bookshelf or worktable, simply because a formal dining table was an unnecessary piece of furniture for someone who never had guests.

  That wasn’t the strangest part of the tableau, however. That distinction belonged to the spider god. Anansi stood at her cooktop wearing a bright red apron that read “Kiss the Cook” in white script, except that the last word had been crossed out and replaced by “Gods.” Kira most decidedly did not own an apron like that—or any apron, for that matter.

  Her stomach growled loudly, responding to the aromas of pancakes, sausages, and eggs. “Where in the world did all this food come from?”

  “Your refrigerator.”

  “Impossible. My fridge is filled with energy drinks, a wilted head of lettuce, and cheese past its prime. I certainly didn’t have eggs and sausages.”

  Anansi deftly flipped an egg over. “That’s because you didn’t believe you did. I believed you had the ingredients I needed and so you did.”

  She pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead, wishing she’d taken another dose of Zoo’s healing herbs last night. She should have known bantering with a demigod would leave her with a headache. After a night listening to folktales and this morning’s struggle to return Khefar’s dagger, she was way off her game.

  “Are you all right, Kira? I’ve brewed up a pot of coffee. Jamaica Blue Mountain, fresh from the roaster.”

  “How did you . . . never mind. I don’t want to know. I’ll just quietly stand here and freak out.”

  He glanced at her as he slid the over-easy egg onto a plate. “Why would you freak out on a good morning like this? The seeker demon’s gone, Khefar has awakened, and breakfast is almost ready.”

  “Fighting a seeker demon doesn’t freak me out. Having an ancient warrior rise from the dead in my bed doesn’t freak me out. But having a demigod in my kitchen making breakfast . . . and that apron? Yeah, that strains my brain a bit.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” She blinked at him as he brought the plates over to the table. “You’re a god.”

  “You’ve met them before. You talk to Ma’at quite often.”

  How does he know that? “Yeah, but she doesn’t come to breakfast.”

  “Have you invited her?”

  Her mouth opened and closed several times, but her brain refused to process speech. Finally she found a mouthful of words. “It doesn’t work that way.”

  “Pity.” He returned to the kitchen for maple syrup. There hadn’t been any maple syrup in her house when she’d gone upstairs. “The old ones are sticklers for pomp and ceremony. Part of the reason why so many were lost in the sands of time—some quite literally. Much better to live on by changing with your worshippers, or finding new ways to survive. For instance, when I gave Al Gore the inspiration for the Internet . . .”

  “Stop antagonizing her, old man. We’ve strained her hospitality as it is.”

  Khefar made his way into the living room. In his jeans and boots with his white T-shirt showing off every muscle, he hardly looked like a centuries-old Medjay warrior. At least, not until you noticed the dagger strapped to his left hip.

  She focused on him. “I hope you’re hungry. Our friendly neighborhood demigod cooked enough food for a small army.”

  “Good thing we’re a small army.”

  They settled at her coffee table. She got about two bites into the best pancake she’d ever tasted when she recalled his words. “What do you mean, we’re a small army?”

  Khefar had already inhaled half his loaded plate and a glass of juice. Resurrection obviously made one hungry. “I’ve decided to help you stop whatever controlled the seeker demon, be it Adept, Avatar, or Fallen.”

  “Why? Adepts don’t have the power necessary to manage seeker demons. If one was stupid enough to try, the backlash of the seeker’s death took him out.”

  “Probably. Besides, you don’t believe it was an Adept and neither do I.”

  She didn’t. Not with the kind of control the seeker had been under. That didn’t come from someone new to channeling Shadow. “What do you know about Shadowlings anyway? Sounds like you’ve been doing your own thing for the last four thousand years, not exactly standing with the Guardians of Light.”

  “Isis, like Ma’at, is aligned with the Light,” he told her. At her questioning glance, he added, “I saw your statue of the Divine Truth in your bedroom. As I said before, my Lady Isis set me upon this course four millennia ago. In that time, I have known and forgotten much more than you can conceive of.”

  “I can conceive of a lot, show-off.” She shrugged. “But please, feel free to share with the unenlightened what you do remember.”

  He gave her a sharp look, then poured more juice. “I know that the Fallen are the offspring of Chaos, present at the first battle between Light and Shadow with the balance of the Universe at stake. I know that when Shadow lost, its children ripped the very fabric of reality to get away, losing corporeal form in the process. When they Fell to this plane of existence, the only way they could take physical form was by taking over willing or corrupted humans as their Avatars. Lesser children of Shadow and Light also came through the Veil and, unable to return, blended and bred with the Children of Man. Humans and hybrids fall on both sides of the Universal Balance, but Shadow will always strive against Light. Fallen will always seek to regain what they have lost, even if it means ripping this reality apart. That’s why Shadowchasers are needed and that’s why you need my help.”

  She gave him a polite golf clap. “So you know your history, but you know little about me. What makes you think I need the help?”

  He put his fork down. “It’s not a question of whether I think you need the help. It’s your risky behavior that I’m concerned with.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I spoke clearly enough.”

  “Maybe I just wanted to see if you’d dare say it again.”

  “Children, please,” Anansi interrupted. “As entertaining as this conversation is, can you not wait until after breakfast? A demigod likes to know he’s at least appreciated, if not worshipped.”

  “Fine.” Kira stabbed a defenseless sausage with her fork, then ripped into it with a satisfying click of her teeth. Risk. I’ll show him a thing or two about risky behavior. Like insulting someone in her own home isn’t risky? “No offense, Nansee, but while I’m sure Mr. Almost Immortal here has no problem hanging around with a demigod, I’m not looking to take on sidekicks.” She forked a bite of pancake into her mouth.

  “Sidekick?” Nansee spluttered. “Sidekick?”

  “I’m not a sidekick,” Khefar interjected smoothly. “Neither is he. I recognize your warrior spirit beneath the reckless demeanor—”

  “Reckless demeanor?”

  “And I believe that if we combine our forces and expertise, we’ll eliminate this Shadowling sooner rather than later.”

  She tightened her grip on the fork.

  The demigod noticed. “Kira.”

  She forced herself to relax at Nansee’s gentle admonition. “It’s not like it would do permanent damage if I stabbed him with it, Nansee. He’d only be dead for another twenty-four hours or so.” She glared at Khefar. “Unless I bury him beneath Turner Field. You do stay dead if no sunlight hits you, right?”

  Khefar frowned. “Why are you wanting to harm me? My offer makes perfect sense.”

  “So now I’m reckless and insensible?”

  Anansi sighed. “Khefar, what Kira is trying to tell you—”

  “Is that I can speak for myself, think for myself, and act for myself. I am a Shadowchaser.”

  “Who works,” Khefar said as he swirled his last bite of pancake in the syrup on his plate, “with the support of a secretive international paramilitary organization with near unlimited resources, not to mention highly trained handlers assigned to each Shadowchaser.” The forkful disappeared into his mouth.

  “That’s a mouthful of adjectives.” Blood throbbed between her ears
. “So a demigod can’t antagonize me in my own house, but an octogenarian to the nth degree can?”

  The Nubian’s lips twisted. “Kira—”

  “I don’t know why you’re in such a hurry to work with me anyway,” Kira said. She put her fork down. Her mood had so soured that not even god-made pancakes and syrup could get her back to her sweet and happy place. Not that she knew where that was anymore. “People who work with me have a tendency to end up dead. So I’m not exactly into the whole partnership thing right now.”

  Was that regret flashing across his face? “I didn’t handle this well.”

  “No, you didn’t.” She pushed to her feet. “Okay, let’s go.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “I’m going to the section chief’s office of that ‘secretive international paramilitary organization with near unlimited resources’ to make a report and a requisition a new phone. You’re going anywhere but there or here.”

  “Still no trust?” He didn’t sound surprised.

  “To be in my house while I’m not here, especially after the discussion we just had? No. I don’t trust anyone for that and neither does my house. You got your dagger back and that’s all you really wanted, isn’t it? So come on, everybody out of the pool.”

  “I can drive you to the Commission’s headquarters. It’s the least I can do as apology for my rudeness.”

  She dragged to a stop. “Say what?”

  “Your bike is damaged, remember? How else will you get to Gilead’s offices?”

  Damn. She hadn’t thought of that. She didn’t have time to make the necessary repairs either, even if she’d had the parts. Still, there was no way that she’d introduce Sanchez to the Nubian. Too many questions would follow, and she already had enough paperwork facing her over the seeker demon.

  “Actually, I could use a ride. To the MARTA station.”

  His smile froze. “The what?”

  “Our public transit. I can hop a train to downtown. The section offices are in Midtown. I’ll get there without worrying about traffic or my carbon footprint.”