by S. W. Clarke
But he wasn’t my enemy anymore. He was dead.
And he loved his daughter. I could trust that.
I reached out, hesitating for a half-second before my fingers closed over the crystalline grip. It was cool and almost too smooth to the touch, as though it had been sanded for many hours.
Of course, that wasn’t possible. He’d only had minutes.
When I lifted the dagger, it gave me no resistance. Here was the lightest little weapon I’d ever handled, and it was the perfect size for my hand.
I brought it before me, touching the edge with a fingertip. Sharp as a fresh-grown thorn. If I applied even a little pressure, my blood would come away on the perfect surface.
“What is this material?” I murmured. It looked vaguely familiar, but I didn’t have a name for it.
Mariana didn’t answer. I supposed that meant she didn’t know.
I knelt, pulling one of my old throwing knives from the sheath in my boot. I wouldn’t leave it—not now, not ever—but I did slot it through my belt and replace it with the crystalline dagger.
It fit perfectly. Almost as though it was made to the size of my throwing knives.
When I rose, I gave Valdis a last look. Had he purposely crafted it to suit my grip? He’d had a lifetime to know Mariana’s hands. He’d seen my throwing knives five years ago during that night at the circus.
Yes, he did that on purpose.
This felt like the moment to say a word. A farewell to the ex-vampire who’d plagued my waking life and dreams.
I stepped forward, tenting my fingertips on the edge of the desk as I leaned a few degrees over. His face was shrouded in his white hair, his head slumped over his chest.
I thought again of the speech I had planned for this moment. It was more than Inigo Montoya, but I couldn’t remember the whole of it now. Something about avenging my family, getting justice for Thelma.
Now, knowing and feeling the way I did, only this came to mind:
“I’ll get Percy and Ariadne back. I’ll do what you couldn’t. Goodbye, Valdis.”
When I turned, my steps weren’t as steady out of the room as they’d been coming in. It didn’t just feel like I was walking away from a dead man.
It felt like more. A small, tempestuous part of my former self resided back there with him.
↔
Dawn was cresting a soft gold and pink as I walked out of Valdis’s office.
Only four players remained in the house in Texas. Me, Erik, Frank, Grunt.
I found them all seated around the living room, Erik cradling his dressed arm on the sofa, Grunt hunched over with his massive elbows on his knees and Frank with a faraway, shellshocked look on the ottoman.
We were a motley, banged-up crew, to be sure. How were the four of us supposed to stop Lust?
Wait a second.
My eyebrows pulled together. “Hey, what happened to Nikolaj?”
Only Erik and Grunt looked over.
“Nikolaj?” Erik murmured a bit dreamily. The morphine in that healing potion was definitely doing its work.
“Yeah, Valdis’s ex-vamp lackey,” I said. “You know, the one whose glares could stop hearts. Actually, he probably just looked at me that way.”
Erik stared at me with a wide-open face, lips parted.
Grunt’s eyes flicked to Erik and back to me. Then, without another word, he pointed a fat finger toward the enormous grandfather clock on the wall. “Look there.”
I side-eyed Grunt, who just shrugged and repeated again for me to look.
When I approached the grandfather clock, I stopped in front of it, peering through the glass into its interior.
There, jammed into the small space and staring back at me with a deer’s terrified eyes, was Nikolaj.
For a second, we just looked at one another. And I understood. I didn’t need to do anything but exchange a look with him to understand.
I’d felt the kind of fear he wore on his face.
This was mortal terror.
I opened the clock, gestured him out. “She’s gone. They’re all gone.”
Nikolaj slowly unwound himself from the awkward position he’d had to fold into to fit into the clock. When he stepped out, it was clear he’d been in there since the moment Percy had burned down that door.
His clothes were all rumpled. His tawny hair was plastered to one side of his head. But most of all it was that terrified expression he wore.
He surveyed the room, and as he did I was tempted to sock him right in the jaw. Maybe if he’d helped us we wouldn’t have lost Percy, Seleema and Ariadne. Maybe, weird as it was to wish for, Valdis and the Soul Hunter wouldn’t be dead right now.
But even as my fingers curled, I knew I wouldn’t touch him.
His cowardice was punishment enough. I could see it in the slump of his shoulders.
“Where is Valdis?” Nikolaj whispered.
Grunt gazed at him from across the room. He set his jaw and said nothing, his eyes dark with meaning.
And for the first time in seven hundred years, Nikolaj was masterless. He turned toward me, his eyes fixing on the one woman he’d been bound to for so long.
“What should I do?” he said, eyes glassy.
I only sighed and shrugged. “Stay or go. I don’t give a damn either way.”
He just stood there, a confused statue. Seven hundred years was a long time to serve one man. He probably didn’t even know how to choose what to have for breakfast.
But I didn’t have time to baby him.
I tilted my head to catch Erik’s eye; we needed to figure out a plan. “Corporal.”
Erik didn’t respond. He stared at a far spot on the wall, half-sunk into the couch cushions.
I tilted my head the other way to find Frank. “Hey, Stubemeyer.”
Frank just shook his head, burying his face in his hands. “I can’t right now, Tara.”
So it was just me and Grunt with any wherewithal. But when I made to approach him, he lifted an enormous hand. “I know what you want.”
My eyebrow rose. “You do, huh?”
“Yes, I do.” He pointed toward the front door. “You want to chase the dragon.”
“Yeah, I do. And I need something from you.”
Now he raised his face fully to me. “You will have whatever I can give.”
I was about to make a case for why he and I shouldn’t be on opposing sides, but that whole speech came to a crashing halt in my head. “Really?”
“I am an ogre of the Lodbrok clan, Tara Drake. We are honorable. You endeavored to save my life in the battle, and for that, I owe you a debt.”
I thought back to the chaos of the night, filtering through the memories. Then I landed on the moment I’d stepped between Percy and Grunt. “Well I’ll be,” I finally said, swiping invisible dirt off my shoulder. “That was pretty smooth, wasn’t it?”
He snorted. “You are still an impulsive little girl. Do not allow your head to grow larger than it is.”
I waved his words away. “So you’ll help me get Percy back?”
“If that is what you wish.”
“Here’s my first wish, Grunt: rally the troops.” I gestured around the room with the kind of breeziness I didn’t feel. “We need to have a meeting.”
“That I cannot do.”
I folded my arms. “Why not? You’re big and imposing and—”
“Because,” he interrupted with a bite to his voice, “we are injured, demoralized and exhausted. All of us.”
This time, I turned around more slowly. When I found Erik, I looked for the first time at his arm. I mean, really looked at it.
It was bloody and wrapped up in a bunch of makeshift gauze.
Then I looked at Frank. The man was covered in soot, and at some point he’d gotten cut badly on the cheek. The blood had dried down the side of his face.
Across from me, Nikolaj shook, clutching himself with both arms wrapped around his body.
I lifted my own hands. They were also soo
ty, and Valdis’s blood was splattered on me. Worst of all, I hadn’t noticed until this moment the simultaneous exhaustion spreading like molasses through my veins … and the way my chest squeezed with anxiety.
Together, I felt like I was on the verge of a panic attack. Or maybe just passing out.
Grunt was right.
“Rest,” the ogre said from behind me. “We do the dragon no good racing after him covered in ash and dying for sleep.”
This was true. Wisdom from an ogre. Who would have thought?
Seeing no other choice, I staggered to the couch and dropped next to Erik.
A rough-looking blanket lay draped over the couch cushion. When I picked it up, I found I was holding the tarnkappe—the cloak of invisibility.
This had kept me safe back in Montreal. And it felt strangely comforting under my hand now, as coarse as it was.
I had to return this to the McGill Other Studies Library. I made a promise, I thought as I held it tight.
And from here on out, I wanted—needed—to be a woman of my word.
I pulled the cloak over me and allowed myself to curl up with my head on the plush arm, one hand set over my painful chest as I wondered how an ogre could be so eloquent, and how I could have lost the person I loved most in the world.
I’d like to say the pain lessened as I dropped into unconsciousness, but I’d be lying.
It didn’t lessen one bit.
Chapter 23
When I woke sometime later, the sun had set. I knew because the steel window coverings had been raised and I could see my reflection in the windows.
I looked like a child in the fetal position.
I slowly sat up, my hair a mess around me. I rubbed my eyes until they focused properly, but nobody remained in the room for me to focus on.
I was alone.
Crickets sounded through the frame that remained of the front door, the insects of a Texan night making themselves known. I sat with both hands at either side of me on the couch, evaluating my current state.
No more molasses in my veins. My head felt clearer.
My chest still squeezed hard, though. I didn’t expect that pain would pass until I was reunited with Percy.
“Good night,” a voice said from behind me, footsteps sounding on the kitchen tile.
I turned around. Erik stood there, his burned arm against his chest. It had been properly wrapped this time, the gauze white and firm against the skin. “I’ve been out all day, haven’t I?”
“Two days.” He came around to sit next to me, and chuckled when shock crossed my face. “I’m joking. It’s just been a day, Tara.”
I rubbed a hand down my face. “Your joke nearly did me in.” If I’d been asleep two days, that meant I was two days behind Percy. It meant he was that much farther from me.
I didn’t miss the wince as Erik sat down.
“How bad is it?” I said, nodding to his arm.
“The healing potion helped, but the wound would have been worse without Grunt.”
“Grunt? What’d he do—pound your other arm until the pain in that one went away?”
He fingered the edge of the gauze. It had been neatly tucked into itself; I didn’t imagine ogre fingers being capable of such a thing. “Believe it or not, Lodbrok ogres know a thing or two about burn wounds.”
Of course, Tara—because they’re dragon-slayers.
I turned to face him in full. “You didn’t tell me how bad the wound was.”
He lowered his arm to his lap. “Second-degree burns.”
“That’s all?”
Something like amusement touched his lips. “You were hoping for worse?”
“Of course not, but he’s a dragon. And you got the brunt of his flames on account of …”
He waited for me to continue. When I didn’t, he prodded, “On account of what?”
On account of saving me.
I stared at him, a strange confession welling in my chest. I wanted to tell him something—something true and important. Something I didn’t tell anybody. “Patience,” I finally said, soft and low.
“You want me to be patient?”
I laughed a little. “No, Erik—it’s my name.”
“What about Tara?”
“She’s a stage performer,” I said. “She swings whips and rides a dragon.”
A slow smile crossed his face.
“What?” I said.
“Nothing.” He pressed his good hand to the couch cushion. “Listen, we’re gathering in the security room. I want to show you something.”
I reached out, my hand touching his. “Erik.”
He paused. “Patience.”
“What you did out there for me … it was brave, and—”
He shook his head. “Don’t mention it.”
I leaned forward, gripping his hand. “Just humor me. I need to say this.”
He didn’t answer, but his cheeks had flushed as he looked back at me. He waited.
“It was brave and selfless,” I said, the words coming out of me in a strangely stilted way. I wasn’t used to talking about these things except in moments of sarcasm, as lofty, impossible ideals. Mostly, I resented bravery and selflessness because I didn’t feel I was either of those things. Now I knew why I’d always felt that way.
Because of Thelma. Because I had left Thelma to die.
“I don’t know how to thank you,” I went on, leaning toward him. When my lips touched his cheek, a fine layer of stubble nettled me. It sent prickles through my nerves. “So I’ll use the ogre’s words: I owe you a debt.”
As I leaned back, his hand turned over, his fingers gripping mine back. “You don’t owe me anything,” he said, eyes softening on me.
“Because you’re here with the World Army, and you would have done what you did anyway?”
“No,” he said. “I didn’t have to save you because I’m here with the World Army. I saved you because I wanted to.”
Amidst the pain, a small bloom of warmth hit my chest. “Then that seems to merit a debt.”
“Debt is as toxic as revenge,” he said, his face gone serious. “Either way, you’re weighed down by the belief you owe someone something.”
Well, that sounded like it had a story behind it. But before I could ask, Erik stood up.
I stood with him. “You ever going to tell me what that smile was about earlier?”
He crossed around the couch, briefly meeting eyes. “I was smiling because the name’s ironic. You’re the least patient person I’ve ever met.”
“Hey!” I said as we passed into the kitchen. “I resent that.”
“Trust me,” he said as we came into the security room where Grunt was already seated. “It’s a compliment.”
↔
In the security room, we spent a good forty-five minutes rewatching the events of the night on the different cameras set up around the house. We must have watched the whole fight three times over, and now we were again onto the lead-up to Lust climbing on Percy’s back and skedaddling with him and Seleema.
My arms had been folded for at least the past thirty minutes. “We should be strategizing about how to save Percy and Ariadne,” I said. “Not watching the past.”
“Don’t you know that saying about mistakes of the past?” Erik murmured, his eyes never leaving the security footage. We were just getting to the part where I shot off the MID and temporarily short-circuited Lust’s magic.
“History unexamined is the future unplanned,” Grunt said from his seat.
Ogre wisdom. Who knew these brutes were so damn wise?
I cast an imperious glance down at him. He’d jumped in before I could show everyone I wasn’t totally uncultured. “Sure, but I think our mistakes were pretty clear after the second watch.”
Erik raised a finger as I shot off the MID on the screen. From its vantage point on the porch, the whole camera’s eye was cast in blinding white light. Then it went blank, the camera presumably obliterated. “Grunt, are there any other angles on th
is moment?”
“If there were,” I began, “Grunt would have accessed those cameras …”
Grunt looked at the wall of screens. “Actually, there may be.” He hit a few buttons and brought up a heretofore unseen view from a new angle—it appeared to be looking straight on at the house.
I leaned forward. We seemed to be viewing the scene through glass. “Where was this camera?”
“A car dash cam,” the ogre said. “In the driveway.”
He brought the footage to the exact moment the MID had gone off. Through the car’s windshield, the blast overtook the front of the house with light. The car shook, but the camera remained on.
We all stared with hard, scrutinizing eyes as the light slowly died away and we finally got a look at the aftermath.
As Lust came into view, I could only see the side of her face. I remembered this moment, when she appeared frightened and truly naked. I had understood why she felt that fear; to be an all-powerful creature whose magic was taken from her must have been terrifying.
But it wasn’t just fear I saw.
I stepped closer, positioning my face as close to the screen as I could. She looked … different.
“Hey,” Erik said.
I raised a staying hand. “Do you see that?”
“No. I can’t see anything because your head is in the way.”
I didn’t move; I pointed at the screen. “Right there, the moment everyone loses interest in Lust. Rewind ten seconds, Grunt.”
The ogre did so. As he did, I leaned back for him and Erik to see. I didn’t say anything until the light died away, and her angels, her followers, Seleema, even Percy, they all stopped looking at her.
When Erik and Grunt didn’t say anything, I got impatient. “Do you see it?” I said to them, gesturing with both hands.
“See what?” Grunt said.
“Look at what happens to her when her spell over them is broken.”
We all stared at Lust, whose arms crossed over her body as though she were suddenly cold. I couldn’t see it out there with her, but I could see it with painful ease now.
