by Kira Brady
The blood had drained from Corbette’s face. He stared straight ahead.
“And the Kivati killers?” Jameson asked.
“One might speculate the youths were on their vision quest. During such time, they open themselves to receive their totem and might be vulnerable to possession. Kivati are otherwise known to have very strong mental shields. They are naturally resistant to wraiths—ordinary wraiths, I mean, which are bad enough. But who knows what a demigod like Kingu could do? We simply have no empirical evidence to inform us, and I think it’s unfortunately quite likely that he has returned. Take the unusual Aether currents of late—”
“Enough,” Corbette hissed. The Aether buzzed, swarming through the room like an angry hive. Corbette’s power to manipulate the Aether was legendary, but it was tied closely to his emotions. Anyone could see the man was stretched thin. The mood in the room rolled in on the Aether, a storm surge headed toward this mostly civilized assembly. The audience sucked it in and played it back, growing angrier.
Leif could do nothing to stop it. The Aether rolled over him, rubbing over his human skin as if to expose the scales. He fought the urge to Turn. His eyes slit. His vision narrowed. The colors shifted to blues and greens. His wings tore at his back, anxious to stretch into the sweet Aether storm that brewed and bubbled between the fragile wood walls.
Jameson couldn’t see it, but he began to sweat. “No, tell us more about this Aether. The source of Kivati power, right? Well, we’ve been working together for six months, and I’ve still seen neither hide nor hair of sharing of this mystical woo-woo. It’s time that changed. I’m getting mighty suspicious of the quality of this collaborative, you get me, Regent?” He glanced jerkily around as unseen currents whipped past him. “And what . . . and what do you have to say to that, Lord Corbette?”
The temperature in the room climbed. Leif leaned into it, welcoming the heat even as he knew the danger it posed.
“The Regent seems to be well informed,” Corbette said. He stood. “My time here is wasted.”
“Regent,” Zetian hissed. “You must stop this.” Her eyes were bright gold. A bead of sweat trickled down her temple.
Leif grimaced, but stood. He released his pheromones, thinking of Grace and feeling a tiny bit guilty. The humans began to relax as his calming scent spread. The feedback effect lessened.
Corbette shot him a killing glance, the violet rings of his pupils dilated till they blotted out the black. It suddenly didn’t seem too far-fetched that Corbette might have sent his Thunderbirds to destroy the House or destroy the human’s cult. With a flip of his long black coat, Corbette stormed out.
“Stop him!” Jameson yelled. “We aren’t finished. You exit those doors and our treaties will be through—Corbette? Corbette!”
Leif could see the future in Jameson’s hate-filled eyes—territories deteriorated into fiefdoms, civil war, no more rebuilding. The destruction of all that he had worked for. Toppling his chair, he hurried after Corbette. He had to salvage this.
Chapter 8
The Raven Lord stormed out of the council chambers with two Thunderbirds at his heels. His coat flared out behind him. The fleur-de-lis wallpaper curled from the wall in his wake, peeling down like linoleum on a hot summer day.
Leif followed him out. “Corbette, wait. We’re all worse off if we don’t work together. Rein in your power and think, man!” The double-paneled doors swung open with a crash. Dusk inked the sky. Crows filled the trees.
Corbette paused at the top of the wide cement stairs that led down to the broken sidewalk. “I don’t need anything from you, Dreki. The policy of open cooperation has failed. Apparently I needed a reminder. It won’t happen again.”
“Three populations, three attacks. Kingu is a danger to all of us—”
“Kingu?” Corbette scoffed. “What will you do against your demonic kin? What can the humans do in the face of a demigod? Nothing. I am taking care of it. Alone.”
“Is that what you told those poor boys’ parents?”
Corbette’s lip drew back from his teeth. He advanced on Leif. Corbette was shorter, thinner, but the Aether crackled out from his skin like a human conductor. It took all Leif’s concentration not to back up.
Leif’s unease grew. “By yourself? But the threat is against us all. The humans can’t withstand an army of wraiths. They’ll be decimated.”
“Since when does a Dreki care for the fate of humans? The Kivati survived before they showed up and will continue to do so when they perish from the earth. They are none of our concern, if they ever were. We are not tied to them.”
“Unlike us, you mean.”
“I am done caring for your flock. See to your own.”
“You can’t be serious. We need to work together—”
“No. This incident has proven the rot of our unfortunate collaboration. I saw what happened to my father, and I won’t let the same thing happen now.”
“My brother was wrong—”
“You and Kingu and your demonic kind do not belong on these sacred shores.” Corbette’s eyes glowed violet in the dim light. There was a mad look about him, and Leif had the feeling he was finally seeing beneath the civilized mask. Danger and death stared out, like an old god. Heartless. Pitiless. Cruel.
It made him want to back away very slowly, but he knew within him lay a monster of equal power and cruelty. If he chose to use it, if he chose to embrace the heartless darkness of the dragon, he was more than a match for the feathered madman. Except that he needed Corbette alive and uninjured and sane.
Corbette didn’t have the same restrictions on him.
“I thought you were a man of science and reason,” Leif said, feeling the dragon crowding to the forefront of his mind. “But I can see I was wrong. I need that coal.” The cold washed through him. He thought of Sven. “I will get that coal one way or another.”
“Is that a threat?”
“There is a long history in Seattle of pulling down the hills to fill in the tide lands. A large crevasse recently opened at the foot of Queen Anne. It would be a pity if your hill followed suit.”
Corbette tilted his head to the side and gave him a long, slow stare. “Then we understand each other.”
Leif felt Grace slip through the crowd at his back. The weight of the invisible tether grew more pronounced. Sidestepping, he blocked her from the Raven Lord’s sight. She’d call him high-handed for it and be rightly irked, but he didn’t care.
Corbette turned his face to the sky. The Aether shimmered around him and his two Thunderbirds. Their long coats flared out in a shimmery golden glow and changed to feathered wings. Their noses lengthened to sharp beaks. Corbette’s Raven was larger than a man, violet beady eyes, sharp talons. The Thunderbirds dwarfed him. They were dragon-sized, and the shadow of lightening singed the tips of their wings. Pushing off from the ground, they soared into the darkening sky. Their tailwind rocked the street with a clap of thunder, slamming shut the doors and rattling the windows. Leif shielded his face. The crows rose from the trees and followed.
“That bastard!” Grace said behind him. “Who does he think he is with his high and mighty routine? The Kivati have humans do their dirty work; they aren’t all self-sufficient.”
“He’s hiding something,” Leif said. “Or he’s scared.”
Grace shot him a disbelieving look.
“He’s scared, and he’s running. His control on his people is falling apart, so he’s going to hole up in his compound and shore up his defenses. Two Kivati youths were taken. That’s never happened in my memory. There’ve always been aptrgangr, but no Kivati has been weak enough to be a victim.”
“I thought you all had some woo-woo defenses against possession.”
“You say ‘you all’ like all supernatural races are the same. Say what you really mean, Walker. You think monsters can’t possess monsters, is that it?”
She shrugged her shoulders and muttered something unintelligible.
Thorsson had rescue
d his weapons from the soldiers at the door, and he lumbered over, followed by Zetian. Her long red skirts snapped back in the gusts of wind. Her slit eyes glowed with the need to change. The Aether still sparked and crackled around the building almost like static electricity right before a lightning storm.
“With this storm, it’s hard to believe the Aether won’t hold an electric charge,” Leif said. “If only I could run some tests . . .” But Corbette would never agree.
Zetian laughed. “Just think if you possessed the power to manipulate Aether like the Kivati, dear scientist, you might change the world.”
“I’ve never seen a machine that could do half that—”
“Ignorant man.” She closed her fingers around his left hand, and her thumb stroked the underside of his malachite ring. “Science is not the only way. But let’s make a quick exit, darling. The mob follows.”
He saw that she was right. Humans trickled out of the council doors. The soldiers Jameson had sent after Corbette clung to their guns and began to look around for new prey. They wouldn’t want to come back empty-handed.
“You still think he plans for war?” Leif asked Zetian.
Zetian gave a tight smile. “More than ever. Don’t let down your guard.”
There was a power vacuum; even Leif with his inattention to political life could see that. Corbette unhinged. The humans infighting and scattered. The Drekar unwilling to cooperate with each other. It was a fertile ground for Kingu, more than Jameson, to divide and conquer. But what could he hope to win? Spreading seeds of fear through an already fearful populace seemed redundant.
Leif raised a hand to run through his hair and found it standing on end. Damn Corbette. He’d call the man theatrical, but that was more Sven’s style. His brother would have left every meeting with thunder at his back if he’d had that power. He’d funded Leif’s experiments to produce a device that could manipulate the Aether, but Leif had never come close. Sven would have used it for ill, and no matter what Leif refused to see about his brother, perhaps some part of him recognized the threat. He’d never melded runes and steam until recently. Until Grace.
“I’m outie,” Grace said and moved toward the stairs.
He grabbed her by the back of her hooded sweatshirt. “Company.” He’d been watching a group of humans waiting in the shadows beyond the torchlight. Spread out, they stood as if frozen. The whites of their eyes gleamed with reflected light. “Aptrgangr?”
Grace stilled. “Looks like it.”
The aptrgangr took a step forward into the puddles of light. At least three were already dead: head wounds and rot gave them away. Pale blue skin stretched tight across blank faces. The rest appeared fresh, but freshly dead or freshly possessed remained to be seen.
“Damn Corbette,” she said. “I bet his magic tantrum called them.”
“We shouldn’t linger,” he said.
“I can’t leave these people unprotected.” She motioned to the growing mob.
“They would leave you in a heartbeat.”
She stuck out her lower lip. “You don’t know that.”
“Would you stake your life on it?”
“Doesn’t matter.” She palmed her knife. “Let me go.”
“Your willingness to martyr yourself, while touching, is stupid,” Zetian said. “Your life belongs to the Regent.”
Grace clamped her mouth shut.
Leif rather admired the woman for her bravery, but he knew it was the mortal half of him that thought it. The dragon half had claimed her as his and wouldn’t allow her to endanger herself for anything. Still, these humans weren’t worth it. It irked him that she thought so little of herself that she’d trade her life for them. “Grace, you don’t think I’m going to let you fight off fifteen undead by yourself, do you?”
“Then help me. Or better yet, hire me to do it—”
“Not this again.”
“Kingu screwed my job, Regent. You’re my last shot. I’m not going away until I earn my freedom.”
“How about I pay you to not endanger yourself?”
She seemed to consider it.
“You can catalogue my library, or something.”
“Or something.” Zetian laughed.
Grace’s face darkened.
“That’s not what I meant.” But he’d already lost her.
“Forget it. I don’t need your charity.” She started down the stairs.
“Thorsson,” Leif ordered.
Thorsson pushed Grace aside, and she stumbled against the railing. The berserker stepped onto the cracked pavement and pointed his sword at the nearest aptrgangr, a thin woman with dirty blond hair tied back in a kerchief and the grit of a scavenger beneath her nails.
“Wait!” Grace held out a hand, but didn’t touch the Viking. “I can save some of them.”
Leif didn’t like the thought of killing a woman. “Can she be saved?”
“Yes. Maybe. If she’s not too far gone.”
Leif didn’t like that answer when fifteen stood against them. The setting sun gave way to a grimy dusk, blood fading over the mountains like Tiamat’s life. The last of the Kivati Crows cawed overhead. Leif glanced behind him to the humans trickling out of the hall. Some meandered heedlessly down the front steps. Some saw the aptrgangr and knew what they were. From these, cries went out.
“Don’t go there!”
“Stay in the light!”
“Someone get the admiral!”
But the admiral was busy nursing his bruised ego, and unless Leif was very much mistaken, Corbette had already abandoned the humans to their plight. “And now what? Would my dear brother take the easy road?”
Zetian shook her head. “And lose this chance at winning the court of public opinion? He was never one to squander resources. You should take a page from his book. Play hero of the people.”
Grace scowled and hunched her shoulders. Her dislike of his brother was a palpable thing, like a rain shadow hanging over her head. Or golden manacles weighing her down. Who could blame her? Sven had been many things. A smooth political player. A strong leader. A kind, if distant, brother.
Had he ever been a hero? Maybe to an awkward young boy desperate for some male companionship from his mysterious kin. Leif’s childhood was marked by a lack of knowledge of his dragon half, except in the stories of the Nameless Ones who flew in the night. Then Sven showed up, the unknown brother, and took Leif under his wing—literally—to show him the stars and introduce him to the splendid dark history of the dragons. Mystery brought to light. Sven cut a dashing figure, like a pirate king in the picture books. Leif didn’t want to see beneath the shiny surface to the truth of why people made the sign of the evil eye against his brother and his kind.
But what Sven might call willful blindness, Leif wasn’t afraid to name love.
“Well, Asgard?” Grace asked. “The wraiths grow stronger while you count cracks in the cement.”
She was right. The storming Aether gave power to the undead before them. From the dark, more eyes gleamed. While he waited here, the Aether drew wraiths like maggots to rotting meat.
A cocky young human in a hockey tee stepped forward. A revolver stuck out of his back pocket. “Reverend Marks says the damned won’t touch a true believer. We have nothing to fear,” he told the people. “Let’s go. Let the monsters fight each other.”
“I wouldn’t recommend it,” Leif called out.
The man pulled the gun and swung it at Leif’s chest. He aimed, steady and ready. A fool who knew how to use a gun. He thought that would be enough. “We don’t need your help, demon.”
Thorsson growled. Leif simply stepped aside. “So be it.”
“No!” Grace shot him a look so dark it should be reserved for murderers and rapists, but then she still thought he was both. She dodged Thorsson and raced down the steps ahead of the revolver-toting human. The aptrgangr stirred at her approach. She ran straight at the thin female aptrgangr. The aptrgangr raised her arms, and Grace slid underneath and rammed a s
harpened iron stake into its back. The undead faltered, but didn’t fall.
“Help her!” he ordered Thorsson, but at that moment the idiotic humans decided to make a break for it and the aptrgangr attacked. There were indeed more hidden in the shadows than had first presented themselves. The aptrgangr were gifted with Thor’s unnatural strength, too strong for a human to fight hand to hand, but they were allergic to iron. Grace stabbed another long railroad stake in the aptrgangr’s flesh, and it crashed to its knees. Gods, she was fast. Quicker than any human he’d seen.
The humans on the other side weren’t fairing as well. Their bullets hit their mark more often than not, but did no damage. The undead pressed on, the wraiths inside unstoppable with mere bullets.
The wind rose, blowing ash and dust into his eyes. He blinked, and Grace was already slashing at a second aptrgangr. He wanted to order her to stop with the full force of the slave bands, but she would be left without defense with five undead between herself and rescue. Tiamat blind him!
Grace watched the woman lose the fight with the wraith possessing her. Between one breath and the next, the twitch stopped and the gait smoothed out. It was too late to do anything. The host was good as dead. The aptrgangr looked right at her and something clicked in her blank eyes. A recognition that made no sense. Wraiths sometimes haunted the people they knew in life, but Grace didn’t think this was one of those times.
She raised her bone knife and palmed the railroad stake. She pushed away the clench of sadness at the brief moment of hope. It was dangerous to pity a creature who would crush her as soon as look at her.
