Bone Hunter

by Thea Atkinson

  At that, he peered about the room with a look of careful politeness and my eye fell on a pair of socks I'd pulled off and left at the foot of the sofa.

  I shifted as I stood there, remembering that those socks had been stuffed in hot boots the day before as I'd staked out a museum curator's extracurricular storage locker for several sweltering hours.

  "Okay," I said feeling the prickle of embarrassment. "So you've been to my real apartment. Big deal. If I'm not there, then where am I?"

  "I told you. The fourth world. When you enter your dank little--"

  I held up a hand. "Enough with the dank, already," I said, feeling irritated now instead of afraid.

  I dropped the knife onto the counter with a clatter. If he hadn't hurt me by now, he had no intentions of it and I was tiring of the guessing game. I wanted answers.

  "So?" I demanded.

  He smiled. "You enter your building like anyone else does, but for you the threshold is different. When you cross it, you enter the duplicate I made for you in my world."

  "And where does this threshold cross, exactly?"

  He grinned, looking pleased with himself. "My manor."

  I blinked stupidly. There were far too many awful things in that information for me to decide on just one question to ask. I had to settle for one, and my brain latched onto the word threshold.

  "So the threshold is a portal of some sort?"

  I couldn't keep the tremor from my voice as I thought of the Blood Gate at the Shadow Bazaar. The bazaar itself was every bit as shadowy as its name and I'd not seen even a quarter of it when I'd been there. It had been long over a month since I'd been sent in to meet its owner by one of my networking homeless teens. That owner turned out to have connections to the pawn shops I frequented to unload my less valuable items.

  Maddox. The name came to me as it had many times over the weeks, with an effortless glide. And yet, I shivered involuntarily, and not from a vestige of peculiar desire my body wanted to remind me of for the man and his peculiar charisma, but because the portal into his bazaar was nasty.

  I couldn't help thinking or wondering what might be happening to me unaware every time I crossed into my building from the street.

  I crossed my arms over my chest without meaning to.

  "I've experienced one of your portals before," I said. "The Blood Gate."

  "I've heard of it, but it's not one of mine, I must admit," he said. "Nor is it of fae. Our magic is more powerful than that. The Blood Gate is nothing but crude enchantment meant to dissuade unsavouries."

  "Unsavouries meaning humans," I guessed.

  He rubbed the cat's belly and she flopped over, legs in the air. She never did that for me. I stomped over to push her onto the floor. She gave me a baleful stare before walking stiff-legged to her water bowl.

  The intruder leaned forward, hanging his hands between his knees as he peered up at me. I tapped my foot, but it was all for show. I knew it was nervous energy. I just hoped he wouldn't figure that out.

  I stuffed my hands in my pockets so he wouldn't see them shake. What was I doing baiting a creature I knew nothing about except that he held the keys to keeping my brownstone safe from Scottie's eyes?

  "Regardless," I said. "I'm not so sure I like the thought of you popping into my house any time you want."

  His eyebrows lifted. "Did I pop? I would think I'd make a more dignified entrance."

  "You know what I mean."

  He smiled again and this time I caught the distinct glint of gold. I tried to look without staring, but I could swear it wasn't gold capping. I didn't realize he'd spoken until he nudged my toe with his foot.

  "What did you say?" I asked, my vision clearing.

  "I said maybe we could make a deal."

  "I don't make deals with people I don't know."

  He chuckled. "Forgive me," he said. "I didn't exactly make myself clear. I need you to do something for me."

  I had the feeling what he planned to ask was going to be very unpleasant.

  "And if I don't?"

  He smiled again. But this time, the glint of gold disappeared and there was the distinct look of clotted blood clinging to his teeth, pooled behind the corners of his grin. I got an incredibly vivid flash of him washing blood from armor while women all around him wailed inconsolably.

  He cocked his head sideways.

  "I'd tell you, but I don't want to scare you."

  CHAPTER 3

  I took an involuntary step backward as he rose from the sofa. He wasn't tall, not in the conventional sense. I was what a kind teacher had once called diminutive and while almost everyone seemed big to me, he didn't loom over me like most people did. Even so, there was something about the way he moved, the way he stood that made him seem large. Like he expected everyone to react as though he was seven feet tall.

  I had the feeling that everyone did exactly that.

  He moved like a fighter, graceful and intentional, keeping his arms tight against his body. Scottie moved like that and I'd know a scrapper anywhere.

  And yes. He was intentionally trying to intimidate me. We both knew it. Worse, it was working, and he could see the effect on me. I had only to look into his eyes to know that.

  I moved away from him instinctively, leaning away, keeping my arms tight against my body. I had to crane my neck to see up into his face because I wasn't about to lose sight of those eyes with him so close.

  If I'd learned anything from Scottie it was that violence flashed through the eyes before it flashed through a fist. I didn't think my visitor would use anything so crude as a punch to subdue me, but if he planned on anything else, I might be able to make a break for it.

  Or at least brace myself for impact.

  I followed him with my gaze as he made a wide berth around me to stroll toward the counter where shards of broken glass still glinted against the tiled floors as they caught the light. The chemical scent of lilac drifted to me in his wake. The dish detergent, not him. He smelled even stronger of toffee. And something else I couldn't name.

  He stared down at the floor for several seconds before he spun on his heel, more gracefully than a man should be able to, and faced me.

  "Do you wonder if a glass falls here in your wing of my manor, if it also falls and breaks in your human world?"

  It was a strange question and I stuttered out a response that made me wonder what the heck I was even on about. I chalked my pleasant sense of ineloquence up to a bolt of nervous energy.

  I wasn't surprised when he gave a mute shake of his head at my inarticulate response, but I was surprised when he reached for the broom that lay against the outside door of the broom closet--exactly where I'd left it the week before when I'd swept up spilled dry cat food so the cat wouldn't scarf it down in one sitting and puke it up on my bed later.

  I watched him sweep the tiles with elegant but waspish strokes. He sent me a disapproving glare once or twice as he dug at crystals in the grout and came away with a good bit of potato chip crumbs as well. I thought I caught sight of a crust of toast.

  I crossed my arms. My house. If he didn't like the state of it, he could leave. I said so, in fact.

  He grunted beneath his breath but said nothing. I guessed he didn't like it, but that he wasn't about to leave.

  He lifted the biggest chunk, the thick bottom with jagged, sharp edges, and set it on its base on the counter beside the trash.

  When he had the rest of the glass shards arranged into a neat pile on the floor, he lifted his eyebrow at me.

  I pointed silently at the closet and he opened the door to extract the dustpan. He spoke again only when he had scooped up the last of the glass and deposited it into the trash bin.

  "So?" he said. "Have you?"

  He brushed at his trousers and looked down at his fingers, rubbing them together with delicate fastidiousness.

  "Have I what?" I said, mesmerized by the movement of his fingers.

  I thought I saw a shimmer of color wavering around his skin
as he nudged the broken glass bottom toward the middle of the counter. It winked with blue light like a sale strobe in a cheap department store.

  "Have you thought about what happens to the glass in your real apartment?" he said again.

  I lifted one shoulder deferentially. "Never had reason to wonder," I told him.

  He put the broom away. "Fair enough," he said. "But it's a good question all the same. What do you think?"

  I shook my head. I wasn't sure what the answer should be or even if it was safe to guess. There were all sorts of reasons I wanted the glamor I'd blackmailed Errol for. Looking at my visitor--I couldn't call him an intruder anymore since apparently I was in his home and not my own--and taking in the way he was imperiously awaiting my answer, I added one more to the list.

  It occurred to me that visitor or intruder shouldn't matter; surely, I had still some rights.

  "Maybe I should ask you the questions," I said carefully. "Like why you're here. And how you got in."

  My bluntness surprised even me, and I clamped my mouth closed with a click of my teeth.

  He chuckled amiably but without a shred of authenticity.

  "Your cat is a far friendlier creature than you are," he said.

  I managed to shrug and hoped it looked casual because the way my shoulder felt, all tense and frozen, I had the feeling it looked more like a jerky marionette limb.

  "Cats are weird things anyway," I said. "Mine even more so."

  "You don't have a name for her?" he asked.

  I shrugged. I hadn't needed one. Cat worked just fine.

  He sighed. "I could always put you back in your own apartment to see if there's a broken glass on the floor," he said, getting back to the point. "Maybe it's cleaned up and in the trash bin like this one is." He jerked his chin toward the garbage. "Or maybe there is no other apartment anymore. Maybe you're already 'home'."

  He leaned against the counter with his arms crossed and one foot over the other. "I wonder what you'd think then."

  He didn't look very murderous, the way he stood there leaning against my counter, his ankles crossed, but the undercurrent of his tone was most definitely so, and the words were about as threatening as anything I'd heard from Scottie. Experience taught me that some men could be the most terrifying when he acted the most casual.

  "You're threatening me," I said.

  Whatever veil of civility my visitor was stretching over his patience was beginning to wear. He sighed and planted his palms on the counter, drummed his fingertips against the sideboard. "You're a difficult one," he said. "A strange little human."

  I stuffed my hands in my jeans pockets. It wasn't the first time I'd heard it in the last few weeks. No matter how anxious I was, I was determined not to show it.

  "You don't want to guess?" he said. "About the glass?"

  This time his tone wasn't merely questioning the way a stranger might ask you your occupation. This time it was a command.

  I picked what seemed the most important considering the dread that crept up my spine.

  "I have a feeling there's something in my true apartment that I'd like seeing less than what might have happened to a cheap dime store glass."

  I knew the truth only when I said it out loud. He didn't need to tell me.

  "What is it?" I said.

  "Wouldn't you rather know the very simple thing you can do to avoid finding out?"

  My stomach felt as though someone had dropped a blob of cement down my gullet. I had the awful feeling I knew exactly why he was there.

  Shades of Finn and the awful, horrible, near-death task of finding a rune tile flashed through my memory. Coupled with my earlier mental image of this visitor washing blood off armour into a pool at his feet, and I lost all my bravado. I ran my hand along the back of my neck as though someone had slid a garrote over it while I wasn't looking.

  The cat jumped up on the counter, pulling along her blankie along with her like a rat's tail, and shoving it against his hand. She was still growing out the hair that Finn had singed down to her skin and had taken to using the blanket for warmth when she wasn't hogging my pillow at night.

  My visitor wadded it up and made a nest of it that he set in the empty side of the sink. She burrowed in and rattled out a loud purring sound.

  I glared at her, the little traitor, but I aimed my words at him, thinking I could logic my way out of whatever he wanted.

  "What makes you think I'm the person who should do this thing, whatever it is?"

  "I don't think it, I know it. Of course, a woman such as yourself understands the value of a transaction."

  I straightened up, reading that to mean I would get something in return for whatever he wanted of me, and I didn't have to think too long to know what that was.

  "You'll leave the magic on the building if I agree," I said.

  He nodded.

  "And if I don't?"

  He canted his head to the side and for a moment looked very boyish.

  "I know a lot about you, Ms. Hush," he said. "One might say I'm the kind of fae who shouldn't know too much about a mortal woman."

  CHAPTER 4

  Fae. Like the assassin who had trailed me and tried to kill me for Finn's rune tile. The back of my neck went clammy.

  "You're threatening me again." I wanted to sound confident, but it came out as a squeak. So much for my bravado.

  He smiled. "Threats are for weaker creatures than me. I'm simply stating a fact."

  He lifted his index finger in the air. "Fact one: you owe me. And I have all the--what do you call it--intel?" he said.

  He wouldn't look me in the eye when he said intel. That couldn't be good.

  He lited the next finger and the next. "Fact two: you have enemies. Fact three: you would like to remain invisible from said enemies."

  He'd hit on every single thing, of course, that mattered to me at the moment. I'd stayed in the city because of the anonymity when I could have hit the bricks. The glamor had allowed me to stay where I'd cultivated a good network of intelligence and contacts. Contacts that were paid were not friends. They had no stake in my safety. Except for a bartender and a skinny teen who provided me word on potential grifts or heists, I had no one.

  So, yes, each of those things was true. But not because there was no choice in any of them.

  I reached into the dry side of the double sink and pulled out the purring cat. She had the nerve to hiss at me and I tossed her toward the bedroom, letting the blankie sail along behind her before I faced him again.

  "Fact four," I argued. "I don't need to stay here. I can live elsewhere, equally invisible from these enemies."

  I put air quotes around the last and he chuckled before hitching himself most indelicately up to the countertop.

  He swung his legs in a boyish way. "Would you care to hear facts five and six?"

  I didn't answer, but he gave them anyway. "Fact five: You've been following a lead on a new archaeological discovery that just so happens to be an affair I've been following as well for my own personal interest. Fact six, and perhaps seven as well: Your lover is still alive, and he is still much interested in knowing exactly where it is you've got to."

  I gasped at that.

  For some reason, Maddox's face came to mind with his strangely attractive squashed nose and burnished hair. I brushed thought of him away impatiently. I'd had enough of dangerous men and he'd indicated he thought I was nothing but a foolish human.

  No. I knew who my visitor meant by lover. A man I'd left for dead with Finn.

  "Scottie is alive?" I said.

  The last I'd seen of Scottie he was facing down that angry sorcerer completely oblivious to his own threat of demise. I'd seen that he'd somehow come into possession of one of the Odin runes Finn had me fetch, and if anything, the sorcerer would claim that property with much violence and little empathy.

  If this fae creature said Scottie was alive, I had no doubt he was.

  "So what is this task, then?" I said, testing the waters.<
br />
  The fae man grinned widely. The teeth that showed shifted back to gold and crystal. His eyes went the most delirious shade of blue.

  "I need you to retrieve something that was stolen."

  "Sounds like a job for a supernatural police force, not a thief hiding behind fae glamor."

  "You're assuming there is such a thing."

  I sighed, not liking where this was going. "Then why not just fetch it yourself?"

  He pursed his lips. "A sidhe warlord does not fetch."

  He didn't put air quotes around the word fetch, but his tone implied it. I had no idea what sidhe was, but I wasn't fool enough to let the label of warlord pass me by.

  I ran my hand through my hair and scratched at my scalp.

  "So what is this thing you want me to retrieve? And what will I get out of it?"

  I was pleased at finding a suitable replacement for the offensive fetch.

  "The body and bones of a god."

  I quirked a brow despite myself. "Bones of a god?" I sucked the back of my teeth. "Finding out who stole them is a tall enough order on its own, but getting them back?" I wavered my hand back and forth. "Sounds like a job for someone who cares."

  "Oh I know who stole them."

  "You do?"

  "Oh yes." His legs stopped swinging as he regarded me with all seriousness. "Vampires."

  His words made the skin on my back crawl. I immediately recalled the vampire I had encountered in the Shadow Bazaar, a place like nothing I'd ever seen before and hoped never to go to again. Indeed, the only way I'd got in the first time had been through some spell or something that my strange young contact, Kassie, wove for me. I hadn't given it much thought at the time, since I'd been in a perpetual state of panic, but if she could weave a spell to get me into the bazaar, she had to be some sort of witch. If I could find the prodigal girl, I might be able to have some help with this new task should I choose to take it on.

  Because I'd need help if vampires were involved.

  That vampire from the bazaar was nothing like the sexy vamps of True Blood or Dark Shadows, or even The Vampire Diaries. I could love me some Damon even if he wanted to drain me down to the last pint...but that vampire from the bazaar? My skin crawled at thought of him like it wanted to dance on its own without bones or muscles to hold it upright.