Specters of Nemesis: (Shadows of Asphodel, Book 3)

by Karen Kincy

  “Tell me.”

  “Ardis.” His voice rasped with raw pain. “You died.”

  Acid burned her throat; she swallowed back a cough. “How?”

  “No.” He gripped her shoulders. “It will never happen.”

  “But it did, in your future–”

  “I didn’t come here to relive my mistakes. I’m here to save you.” His hands clenched, almost painful on her shoulders.

  “Tell. Me. I’m a mercenary. Death is in my job description.”

  He faked a laugh as he let her go. “Morbid.”

  “What did you expect from me?”

  “I expect you not to think about your death every night, every day you are alone, until you can’t even remember how to breathe.”

  “I deserve to know.”

  Wendel looked everywhere but her, as if it were easier to pretend she wasn’t here, as if he couldn’t think of losing her again. “Please.”

  “How did I die?”

  “I wasn’t there,” he whispered.

  It was impossible not to imagine dying alone. A blade to the heart, a bullet to the brain. Out of all the questions, she asked, “Why?”

  “After a week in the hospital, they released me.” A muscle in his jaw flexed. “You promised to meet me that morning. When you didn’t arrive, I returned to the hotel alone. You had been killed the night before.”

  “Killed?” She kept her voice level. “By…?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Didn’t you–ask me?” Surely, he must have touched her and brought her back for a moment.

  Wendel stared somewhere distant, perhaps nowhere at all. “You never saw his face. He kept to the shadows. Must have known I was a necromancer.” His shoulders stiffened. “The man said one thing. ‘Nemesis never forgets.’”

  Her skin felt numb, like nothing could touch her. “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Her hand lingered over her belly. “Wendel, the baby…?”

  A stupid question. She knew she didn’t want to know the answer.

  He shook his head. She hunched on the berth, her eyes burning, fighting the pain that gripped her throat like claws. Thinking of her own death–that was something she could look in the eye–but thinking of her baby…

  “Ardis.” He drew her into a crushing hug. “I’ve said too much.”

  She struggled to breathe, her face buried in his coat, the metal tang of blood in her nose. He held her tight until tears leaked from her eyes. He kept stroking her hair under his hand, whispering her name again and again.

  The heartbreak in his voice was almost too much to hear.

  Fourteen

  The Gannet had a beautiful yet lightweight dining room: silk wallpaper, wicker furniture, and cushions plumped with air. Ladies and gentlemen murmured in polite conversation. Outside, the plum glory of evening darkened the clouds.

  Wendel slouched in his chair, his face unreadable, and stared at her with glimmering eyes. He hadn’t let her out of his sight since his confession.

  Ardis ran her finger along the gilded edges of her plate. “Stop,” she murmured.

  “Pardon?” he said.

  “Looking at me like I’m broken.”

  His shoulders flinched. He shook out his napkin and spread it in his lap. “I should have brought this secret to my grave.”

  “You should have told me sooner.”

  “Would it have hurt less?” He kept his voice light.

  “No.” She swallowed hard. “But you didn’t need to drag me along blindly.”

  Sipping from his water, he gazed at her over the glass. “Ignorance is bliss.”

  She curled her hands into fists on the tablecloth, ready to eviscerate him for being a bastard, but a waiter glided over to their table.

  “Sir, ma’am. How are we this evening?”

  “Fantastic.” Wendel bared his teeth in a smile.

  The waiter slipped menus onto the table. “Might I recommend the smoked Westphalian ham? Paired with a Riesling?”

  “Yes.” Wendel waved him away. Wisely, the waiter retreated.

  “You didn’t need to lie to me,” she said.

  “You didn’t need to share my nightmares.”

  Her fingernails bit into her palms. “We do this together or not at all.”

  “Together.” His gaze dropped to the ruby ring she wore. “We never married.”

  “Not yet.”

  He looked her in the eye. “That won’t stop a murderer.”

  Her stomach iced over. She shoved her chair from the table, her appetite long gone. “I don’t want to talk about this over dinner.”

  “Ardis–”

  “Don’t.”

  She retreated from the dining room and navigated to the observation deck on the bow. Rain pattered on the silver skin of the airship. Her eyes stung from unshed tears. Gripping the railing, she peered at the choppy waves of the Atlantic.

  How much time did she have left? Days? Hours?

  Even if Wendel had traveled through time to save her, what if Fate had already cut her thread short?

  She closed her eyes, though that didn’t stop tears from slipping down her cheeks. She gritted her teeth and wiped them on her sleeve. When Wendel joined her on the desk, she turned away from him, refusing to meet his gaze.

  “Ardis.” He spoke in a low voice. “After I lost you, I wandered New York for weeks. I hunted down Nemesis, and I killed every last one of them that I could find. The dead don’t lie. But none of them confessed to–” He cleared his throat.

  She breathed in the scent of rain-washed air. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because I should have told you before.” He touched her elbow. “Come inside.”

  Surrendering, she followed him back to the honeymoon suite. The irony of it stung like salt in a wound. He held out a towel to her, then changed his mind and dried her hair himself. She let out a laugh at his clumsy help.

  The towel dropped to the floor. He looked at her with eyes like cut glass. “No one in Nemesis knew the murderer. Not even why. Eventually, I realized he must have fled the city, though I had no idea where to look next.”

  “But you left?” she said, her throat aching.

  His gaze dropped, his eyelashes shadowing his cheeks. “There was no reason for me to stay. After the sleepless nights, after the bloodshed, I had to stop. The police were after me, so I left America and returned to Germany. There, I tracked down Konstantin, and managed to convince the archmage to send me back in time.”

  “Why did you return to the night after you had been shot?”

  “Temporal magic can be imprecise.”

  She sank onto the edge of the bed. “How far back did you travel?”

  “Six months.” His eyes looked hollow. “Tomorrow is the day. When you…”

  “Die?”

  “Yes.”

  “But we aren’t in New York anymore.”

  He ran his hand over his jaw, with the subtle rasp of stubble. “Things keep happening like a misremembered dream.”

  “Tell me more.”

  “Remember that night at the docks?”

  She nodded. “The Reliant.”

  “I failed my mission for Nemesis. The NYPD questioned the guard at the docks before arresting me on suspicion of sabotage. They lacked evidence to press charges, so they released me, but Nemesis cut off contact with me.”

  “You never went to the Arcanaeum?”

  “Correct.” A smile touched his lips. “I remember your mother’s flight arriving in New York, though you refused to introduce me while I was wounded in the hospital. She found out, anyway, and argued with you in Chinese.”

  She laughed. “That sounds about right.”

  His smile faded as quickly as it had come. “We never ate dinner in Chinatown, but your mother met me anyway. I never fought Nemesis, but they came for you anyway.” His face tightened with poorly con
cealed pain.

  “Who would want to kill me?” she said.

  “I have asked myself that question a thousand times.”

  “Was the other Ardis working as a double agent?”

  “What?” His gaze snapped to hers.

  Damn, she hadn’t told him, just his twin. “The NYPD recruited me to infiltrate Nemesis. After questioning us in the hospital.”

  “And you agreed?”

  “They threatened to send me back to San Francisco, where I would have been arrested.”

  Narrowing his eyes, he pressed his fist to his mouth. “Does Nemesis know you have been working as a double agent?”

  “No.” She hesitated. “I don’t think so.”

  “Maybe they knew,” he muttered, “in my time. Maybe I asked the wrong questions.”

  He had to be thinking of the men he killed before interrogating; he had to be tormenting himself with the choices not taken.

  “Wendel.” She waited to catch his eye. “It won’t happen again.”

  “Why not?”

  “We’re on a zeppelin over the Atlantic. We’re miles away from New York. When tomorrow arrives, I won’t be alone.”

  He fidgeted with his sleeves. “What if you die another way?”

  “Then you travel back in time again.” She twisted her mouth. “Unless this zeppelin catches fire and we both die horribly.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t find that amusing.”

  “Better to laugh than surrender to despair.”

  He looked away, the lines of his body tense. “You may think less of me for despairing, but it isn’t under my control.”

  A knot tightened in her throat. “I’m sorry. I can’t imagine living without you for six months.”

  “Then you understand why I traveled through time for you.”

  “I do,” she said, “but I don’t think you can live while contemplating only death.”

  He glanced at her. “I’m a necromancer,” he said, his voice as dry as a bone.

  She sighed. “I’m not asking you to forget your particular talents and become a milkman.”

  “A milkman?” He arched an eyebrow. “Surely that job is beneath me.”

  “Fine,” she said, “you can be a world-class chef.”

  “I can’t cook.”

  “Wendel, you know what I mean. Your past doesn’t have to define your future.”

  He lowered his gaze, the light catching on his cheekbones. “It won’t.”

  “Where will we go from London?”

  He tilted his head. “Anywhere you desire.” A smirk tugged at the corners of his mouth. “After all, this is our honeymoon.”

  She scoffed. “You have to marry me first.”

  “We have a cover story to maintain.” He glanced at the ruby ring glinting on her finger. “My beloved wife.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Darling husband, we will be anonymous in London.”

  “All the better to pretend.”

  ~

  Ardis couldn’t sleep. Maybe it was the drone of the zeppelin’s engines, or maybe it was Wendel’s arm slung over her hip while they left the other Wendel an ocean away. She stared skyward, counting her breaths, until conscious thought seemed necessary for breathing. Wendel slid out of bed. She shut her eyes and pretended to be asleep. He dressed, put on his boots, and padded from the room with silent steps.

  When he didn’t return, she wrapped a robe around herself and left the cabin.

  Moonlight crept through the windows of the zeppelin and silvered the clouds. In the corridor, a crewman tipped his hat as she passed. The door to the men’s restroom was closed, but it swung open a moment later when a little old man shuffled out in a paisley dressing gown. He didn’t even acknowledge her existence.

  Where was Wendel?

  Beyond the bathrooms, she could see the double airlock to the bar and smoking room. She hadn’t ventured there yet. Cigarettes and hydrogen made her nervous. Taking a deep breath, she journeyed through the airlock.

  By the glow of the moon, she found Wendel by the bar. He nudged a bottle of absinthe across, the green liquor sloshing in the glass.

  “Care to join me?” he said.

  “Don’t be stupid,” she said, “I’m pregnant.”

  “Of course.” His hands unsteady, he balanced a silver spoon on a glass. “Damn it, do you see any ice cubes?”

  “No.”

  “Sugar?”

  “No,” she said again. “Go to bed.”

  “I can’t sleep.”

  “Neither can I.”

  He swigged from the bottle. Wincing, he swallowed and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “To hell with decorum.”

  “Are you planning to get drunk?”

  “Obliterated.”

  “I would prefer you didn’t.”

  “There isn’t any opium here,” he said, flippantly.

  Her shoulders tightened. “You promised not to touch opium again.”

  Rather than look at her, he swigged from the bottle again. “Christ, that burns.”

  “Wendel.”

  “You weren’t there.” Absinthe roughened his voice. “Opium was my only way to sleep.”

  She didn’t want to imagine him alone in an opium den, lost in a haze of smoke, until he couldn’t even remember she existed.

  “You don’t have to do this,” she said.

  He tilted the bottle and watched the liquor slosh. “If you knew the world I did, you would also drink yourself to sleep.”

  She lowered herself onto one of the bar stools. “What was it like?”

  “Country after country joined the fight. The Great War. When the Russians conquered Königsberg, I returned to Prussia.”

  “They conquered Königsberg?”

  He sipped the absinthe. “A single defeat didn’t stop them.”

  She remembered the clockwork dragon’s claws shredding the silver skin of a zeppelin; men panicking within swarms of mechanical wasps.

  “Your family?” she said.

  “Prisoners of war.” His eyes looked glossy. “I didn’t bother rescuing them.”

  “Why?”

  “I asked Konstantin to send me back in time. He had lost his position with the Archmages of Vienna, so he had nothing better to do.”

  “He wanted to help you?”

  “Not me,” he said. “You.”

  Her fingernails dug into the cushion of the barstool. “How did he do it?”

  “It took him over two months to build the technomancy. I stole whatever he needed, but much of it hadn’t been invented yet.”

  She let out a broken laugh. “Back in New York, the current Konstantin asked me if you saw any technomancy blueprints.”

  Wendel arched an eyebrow. “What did you say?”

  “That you didn’t know much about technomancy.”

  “True.” He leaned against the counter. His gaze darkening, he swigged yet more absinthe. “Konstantin died sending me back.”

  “What?”

  “The temporal magic was… violent.” He squinted as if remembering the sight. “While I stood within the eye of the storm, Konstantin strayed too close.”

  She shivered. “When you traveled back in time, did you also travel across space?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “I haven’t a clue how Konstantin calculated the coordinates in both space and time. Conveniently, New York City makes a rather large target.” He enunciated his words carefully; he had to be feeling the alcohol.

  “Haven’t you had enough to drink?”

  “I think I haven’t.”

  She gritted her teeth. “Don’t be so damn disappointing.” The moment the words left her mouth, heat scorched her face.

  Wendel looked sideways at her. “What do you expect from me?”

  She sucked in a breath. “You’re better than this.”

  “I’m not a good person. Never have been.” He didn�
�t say it with any particular bitterness, just stated it as fact.

  “You’re wrong.”

  The absinthe captured Wendel’s gaze again. “Remember when you rescued me from the battlefield, from the bloody snow?”

  She sniffed. “I wanted to ransom you.”

  “I would have died without you.”

  “I know.”

  “Even if I had survived alone, even if I had escaped the Order of the Asphodel’s endless assassins, I would have had nothing.”

  Pain gripped her throat. “You would have had your freedom.”

  “Freedom to drink absinthe and smoke opium.” He poured himself another shot. “What use is a necromancer without death?”

  She didn’t know how to answer that. Had the darkness rotted too much of his soul?

  “Go back to sleep,” he said.

  Meeting his gaze, she gripped his wrist. “Not without you.”

  “Surely you would rather avoid me. When I’m….” He waved at himself. “Pathetic.”

  “Stop.”

  When she tugged him from the bar, he didn’t resist her. They stood before the airlock. He bowed his head, his ragged hair in his face, as if he were too ashamed to look at her. She suspected he had lost any semblance of pride.

  How far he had fallen, from a Prince of Prussia to a necromancer without hope.

  “Find whoever killed me in the future,” she said. “Protect me.”

  He glanced at her. “How?”

  “I have faith in you.” Her words sounded brittle.

  Without waiting for his reply, she left through the airlock. He didn’t follow her from the smoking room. She returned to their cabin alone. When she lay on the berth, her throat burned with unspoken words. Her heartbeat sounded deafening in her ears, the unceasing noise filling the space in her head until she wanted to scream.

  ~

  Ardis slept without dreams, though she may have forgotten them all, and woke in Wendel’s embrace. Gray morning light whispered through the porthole. When she shifted in bed, her hip sore, his arm tightened around her.

  Today was the anniversary of her death.

  She couldn’t lie like this forever, still and silent, wasting whatever time she had left. Slowly, she tugged Wendel’s arm over her hip and slid out of the berth. When her bare feet hit the carpet, the sheets rustled.