by Kira Brady
Where were their parents? She wanted to yell at them to get away from the edge, but she knew they needed this work. The church and Kivati had set up soup kitchens, but the lines out the door stretched for hours. Her own stomach growled in sympathy.
How could she be so caught up in her own problems when she had it good? A roof over her head. Food in her belly on most days. An occupation that could bring in the big bucks if she could only keep it for herself. She’d never liked whiners.
She turned to Oscar. “You have anything else I should know about?”
He squinted up at the scavengers. “Naw, just rumors.”
“What rumors?”
“You know, in the broadsheets. Some guy calling himself the ‘voice of the people’ says a vigilante chick is saving people stupid enough to be caught out alone. I wouldn’t want anyone to start pointing fingers.”
“Don’t know nothing about it,” Grace grumbled. She called to Bear, who appeared from a doorway looking put out. She unlocked her bike and stowed the lock. “Only rumors. You see any more broadsheets, you rip ’em down, you hear?”
“Can’t stop the news.”
She helped the cat into the basket.
“Let the people fight their own demons,” Oscar said. “You got enough on your own. Even the Raven Lord has closed Queen Anne to non-Kivati. No more handouts. No more hand-ups.”
“These people?” She motioned to the kids high overhead. “Starving softies?”
“You’d be surprised how many find their strength when their back’s against the wall. That’s what the old boss was good at. He demanded more from a person than they thought they had in ’em.”
“Like me?” she asked. A grieving sixteen-year-old whose soft fingers were fit for nothing but piano. She’d earned her calluses fast enough.
“Naw. Not you, Reaper. You were hard with hate the first moment I met you.”
I was soft, she thought. Love had done that to her. Her parents’ love. She’d expected good from people back then. She’d been infatuated with the man who had given her the tools to her revenge. It messed with a person’s brain, so that she thought she was in love with Norgard. She would have done anything for him.
Soft. Weak. Naive. Easily manipulated. She let each of those hated words pound into her, and each bruise was a memory. A reminder. She needed to be iron-plated. She’d survived Norgard, survived the Unraveling, and she would survive this too. She was hard as the rock beneath her feet.
“You don’t have to fight,” Oscar said. “You could teach them instead. Let them fight their own battles. You’d be a good teacher.”
“Hmm.”
“Charge them for lessons.”
“I’ll think about it.” She mounted the bike and took off, skirting the crater, toward Pioneer Square.
After a few blocks, the sun shot tendrils of red across the horizon. She passed men and women in heavy canvas overalls waiting for the work cart. The tech nerds who used to be petty kings had fallen on hard times. They had no usable skills in the new economy. Code and World of War-craft didn’t translate well to basic survival in the real world. Like the Great Depression, empty hands were put to work: scavenging debris from the broken city, laying brick along the Interurban, digging coal in the reopened Ravensdale Mine, or rebuilding the Gas Works. Grease, oil, and ash were baked into their weary faces. Backs bent, arms muscled, even from a distance they reeked of misery and gin.
She passed a huddle of sloshed guys, presumably stumbling to the coal mine after a long night at Butterworth’s. Something about their stance didn’t sit right, so she looped back around. The two hooded men were wrestling with something on the ground. When she stopped, another man popped from the alley mouth. He leaned drunkenly against the brick wall.
Definitely not right. Still, it wasn’t her fight. Oscar’s warning blared in her head. She shouldn’t earn a do-gooder reputation. No one would hire her if she gave away her services for free.
The tallest hooded figure saw her. He rose from his crouch. A body lay behind him. If it was aptrgangr, she’d congratulate them and move on. She coasted a little closer. The body’s face was hidden, but she noticed he wore a black armband. Kivati, Western House. Same House as Hart. Wraiths posed little threat to Kivati, but humans did. Gods, she hated bullies.
Screw Oscar’s advice. She swung her leg off the bike and leaned it against the building next to her. She let her madness show in her eyes. She avoided fighting humans, but these men looked like they could use a little steam breathing down their necks. She had to work at making humans take notice. She thought about Zetian, Norgard’s Dragon Lady advisor, and channeled her inner bitch. “Strange place for a conference, boys. You should move along.”
The tallest man moved toward her. The Kivati on the ground didn’t move. Dead? The second man rose and glanced down the alley. Someone was still down there. Someone who made him nervous. He nodded to the tall one. “Come on, Rob. Let’s go.”
“Why, Kyle? We just want to spread a little love. The girl is almost ready to convert.”
The skinny man at the alleyway twitched. His eyes skittered away, dancing over the ghostly office towers and back to her, but never landing on one thing. He was high as a kite.
Perfect. He wouldn’t be a threat. Grace rolled up her sleeves, exposing the long line of crimson runes running down her arms above her energy meridian.
Rob whistled. “Nice. You see, Kyle? She’s cool. Aren’t you cool, chica?” He shuffled toward her. She noticed a small blue flame tattooed at the base of his left thumb. A quick glance told her that the skinny guy sported one too. They belonged to a small militant sect of New Revelation—the Mark of Cain. “You want to see the supernatural, baby? I can take you to heaven.”
“No, this one’s a freak,” Kyle mumbled. “Marks only wants clean girls. Let’s get out of here.”
So Marks was collecting young innocents for his church out at sea? Grace would love to give him a piece of her mind. But it was a lot harder to fight a human than an aptrgangr. For one, she was worried about permanently damaging a human. Killing one still counted as murder, and the New Revelation folks would avenge one of their own.
“Oh, yeah, Rob. Take me to see the light,” she said and spun out in a roundhouse kick.
Alcohol didn’t help Rob’s reflexes, but he was trained. He snuck one fist past her, catching the edge of her eye, before she dropped him with a kick to the groin. Kyle took off running. The skinny dude panicked between following Kyle and helping Rob, but discretion won out over valor and he left Rob curled in the dirt.
Grace squatted down next to Rob. She squinted through her left eye, which throbbed with the beginning of a nasty shiner. “Is that a girl you have trapped down that alley? I’m about to go see what I can see. Am I going to like what I see, Rob?”
“We didn’t do anything to her,” he whined. “Marks wants ’em pure.”
“I see.” She stood. “Rob, you have about three minutes. When I get back, we could have another little chat, but I don’t think you’d like that as much.”
He pulled himself up. His face had turned a mottled red. “Don’t tell me what to do, bi—”
She palmed her knife and held it up to the torchlight so that he could get a good look at the spell-tipped blade. “Come again?”
He recoiled. “Dragon whore.” She let it bounce off her. She’d been called worse. The important part was he left, and he didn’t look like he’d be back.
Grace glanced down the alley and found a woman in a cloak huddling against the wall. Thin shoulders, thin frame. The hood hid all but the tip of her pointed nose. “You can come out now. I’m not going to hurt you,” Grace said to her as she bent to check the Kivati.
“Is he alive?” the woman asked.
“Do you want him to be?”
“Yes.”
The Kivati was breathing. “You’re in luck.” Grace turned him faceup. She recognized him. Johnny. His eyelids fluttered.
A red welt decorated one e
ye. His straight, coal-black hair fell in a tangle down to his nape. He was about her age, around twenty. His totem was Crow, and he had the fine cheekbones of the bird tribes. Two thin, white scars sliced diagonally down his cheeks: the Kivati mark of dishonor. He’d handed the Kivati princess over to Rudrick, a Kivati Fox who’d had aspirations of leading a revolt. Rudrick had assaulted Princess Lucia and shed her blood in an ancient Babylonian ceremony to bring down the Gate to the Land of the Dead. The result had unleashed global earthquakes, an army of wraiths, and Kingu. Johnny might have been too stupid to know what Rudrick had planned, but in Grace’s mind, that was no excuse.
Grace slapped his face. “Rise and shine, Van Winkle.”
The man stirred. “Luce?”
Grace took another look at the woman. Rich, unarmed, and out of place. The fine wool of her cloak was dyed a midnight blue. The black toes of her heeled boots indicated good-quality leather. If this was the Kivati princess, she was a much kinder woman than Grace. “Are you sure you want him alive?”
“Johnny’s life is forfeit to me.” Lucia shrugged her frail shoulders.
“What were you doing out here?”
The princess gave a bitter laugh. She was only eighteen, but she sounded eighty. Her blood had brought down the Gate. Her innocence shattered. Her mind fragmented, if the rumors were true. “Are you going to lecture me now?”
“Not me.” Grace knew what it felt like to be the subject of gossip, to have everyone know your humiliation. There was no place to hide when the shame corroded your gut. The cancerous feeling moved with you. The best she could do for Lucia was to leave her alone. She stood and turned to go.
“Wait.”
“Look, I’ve been up all night. I gotta go.”
“Can you teach me to do that? To fight?”
Grace snorted. Delicately, she drew her finger across the bruised corner of her eye. “That wasn’t much of a fight.”
“I want to be able to defend myself. I’ll pay you.”
Something about that irked. “No offense, Princess, but I just don’t see you fighting. You’re not a killer. Some bruiser comes at you again—hell, some skinny guy with ten pounds on you could best you. You’re not going to kick his butt—you’re going to run like hell.”
“You don’t know anything about me.” Lucia fisted her hands on her hips.
Grace saw her own rage mirrored there. How many times had she wanted someone to see past her bullshit? There was the face she showed the world and then there was the woman inside. Tough, but wounded. Angry, but kind. “That isn’t an insult. You’re going to run, because that’s your absolute best defense. I’ll give you some advice: ditch the dress and get yourself some sneakers.”
“What do you care? I said I’ll pay you. What I do with it is my business.”
“Fighting lessons make some people take stupid chances. Exhibit A.” She pointed to Johnny. He opened his eyes and squinted. His hands moved to the lump on his head.
The princess lowered her hood. The rising dawn glowed off her snow-white hair. The Unraveling had sucked all the color out. “One of them threatened me, while the others attacked Johnny. He didn’t defend himself.” Lucia’s youthful face tightened. Her eyes were two pools of ancient against her unmarked skin. “I will not be a victim again.”
Grace ran a hand over her face. She could identify with that wish, more than she’d like to admit. She never let herself think the word “victim,” because that didn’t help her situation. “So what are you doing out here? The first part of not being a victim is not taking stupid chances.” Do as I say, not as I do, she thought darkly. Oscar would laugh his ass off if he heard her now.
“I could ask you the same question.” Lucia turned her pointed nose in the air. She could pull her high and mighty routine all she wanted; it wasn’t going to work on Grace.
“You don’t see me wandering about at night unless I have a damn good reason to.” Grace turned to Johnny. He pushed himself off the ground. He rubbed the back of his head. She held up two fingers. He scowled at her, and she dropped them. “What did they want?”
“Off-duty Mark of Cain,” Johnny said. “The New Revelation death squad.”
“And Corbette allows them to wander about ‘converting’ girls?”
Johnny and Lucia exchanged a look. “He’s . . . not himself of late—”
“He’s busy.”
Too busy to keep an eye on his traumatized fiancée? Or did Johnny’s appearance mean that whole shindig was off? Maybe the Raven Lord didn’t want a tainted bride. Grace scowled. “All right, I’ll teach you a couple tricks, but it’ll cost you. I tell you what I know, and you can do with it what you like.”
“Luce—” Johnny warned.
Lucia cut him off. “I accept.”
“If you can slip out again,” Grace said, “meet me at Butterworth’s. Tomorrow?”
Lucia offered a tremulous smile. “I’ll be there. Thank you.”
Grace waved her off. Now she had a job. She should be bouncing off the walls, so why did she feel nervous? Things were finally going her way. She’d better watch her back.
Chapter 6
The road to hell was paved with bureaucrats. The last thing Leif wanted was to become one of them, but every move he made seemed to drag him further into the cogs of the great political machine. Take, for instance, the rusted towers before him. At one time Gas Works Park had been the site of a coal gasification plant that provided power for half the nascent city. It sat on a prime piece of real estate that jutted out into Lake Union with a gorgeous view of the broken towers of downtown.
Leif tried not to stare at them. He’d liked civilization, and the constant reminder of its loss only made him morose.
Lake Union was a swamp of its former self. When the Ballard Locks had broken, half of the water had drained into Puget Sound, leaving twenty feet or so of green slimy lake bottom exposed. Rain, slime, and more rain. He might as well be back in bloody England.
He wondered if London still stood. Nothing in his research definitively pointed to its destruction, so he preferred to think of his adopted city as it existed in his memory. It was a boon that he couldn’t check himself; that way lay madness. A Dreki who couldn’t keep up with the damage time wrought to his world lost his will to live. There was much to find dissatisfying in this life, but he preferred it to the alternative.
What had Sven been thinking?
“I am not my brother,” he reminded himself.
“What was that? I can’t hear you over this infernal banging.” Zetian waved her list at him. After months of badgering him to hear supplicants in the new Great Hall, she’d finally brought the fight to him.
Work crews were on site sunup to sundown, and Leif visited when he could. He had a foreman, but he liked to direct the restoration personally. Zetian had abandoned her hope of getting him on Sven’s ostentatious jeweled throne. Leif had told her he’d rather dine with Ereshkigal in hell, and perhaps she’d finally taken the hint.
“I’m working, Zetian. If you want my attention, you’ll have to keep up.” He took off over the muddy lawn toward the south tower where the steelworkers were soldering the last seam in the spare boiler. Workmen had blasted through his latest round of instructions. At this rate the first small batch of gas could be produced at the end of the week. He couldn’t wait to show Jameson just what his people could contribute to the new city. This would be a major triumph. He should never have to prove his usefulness again. Science and ingenuity would win out, no war required.
“You are impossible,” Zetian said.
“So I’ve been told.”
“You haven’t even seen the coal. Corbette will never deliver.”
“The first shipment is on its way as we speak. Just in time to test the equipment.” He pulled out his gold pocket watch and checked the time. “I sent Thorsson this morning to check on their progress.”
Zetian thinned her lips. “Should I quit then? I’m not much use as an advisor if you disregard my
advice.” She had urged him to stall the retrofit, or finish in secret and keep the gas for himself. He was trying to reinvent their reputation, not reinforce their image as underhanded, two-faced bastards. Couldn’t she see that? But she saw every interaction as an opportunity for the Kivati to finish their dragon extermination campaign. The Kivati had killed off the local population of dragons—the Unktehila—centuries ago. Ever since Sven showed up with his Drekar followers, Corbette had been trying to finish the job. Perhaps she was right.
“You have my undivided attention until Thorsson arrives,” Leif said.
“Try not to look petulant,” Zetian said. She reached out and adjusted the lapels of Leif’s black silk suit, glancing up at him through her lashes as she did. Leaning close enough that her breasts, encased in a tight band of red silk, barely touched his chest, she pouted her ruby lips. “Use your considerable . . . charm. Your brother may have shielded you from court politics, but even you can’t have survived two centuries without developing a deft hand at it. Charm is your greatest weapon.”
He gritted his teeth and watched a dark shape rise from the water, oozing lake muck, and swing its tentacle at a passing duck. The Unraveling hadn’t just freed an army of wraiths. Oh, no. It had scurried things up from the dark deep. Things that should have stayed down there. The water wasn’t safe for humans or Drekar anymore. The tentacle caught the poor duck and drew it down beneath the waves.
“That’s better,” Zetian said. “You look positively murderous.” She had a line of petitioners waiting for him at the base of Kite Hill with Joramund and Grettir on security detail. The two Vikings were part of his brother’s personal guard, led by Erik Thorsson. The three Drekar were Leif’s opposite in every way: uncultured, unsympathetic, and immoral.
The petitioners ignored the berserkers through some feat of bravado. It was about as easy as ignoring a stampeding rhinoceros. Leif passed the line with a brief, tight smile, and followed Zetian to the crown of the hill, where a gilt chair had been placed in the center of the giant sundial. He had to give Zetian credit. The hill might be sparse, the grass brown. Nothing hinted at the Regent’s nobility and power but the gold paint on the chair. But the stunning backdrop of Lake Union shot out behind him, and the ruined city spread across the horizon gave his position an air of danger. Sitting here he would look like a barbarian king resting on his knoll while the village burned.
