Death's Dancer

by Jasmine Silvera

  “Miss Vogel,” he said, his voice warbling between delight and concern. “Good to see you again—so soon.”

  Isela didn’t trust herself to be civil, so she kept her mouth shut.

  Gregor strolled a step or two behind her. “Tyler.”

  The younger man leapt as if goosed at the sound of his name. “Mr. Schwarz.”

  She waited as Gregor took his time removing his coat and scarf, shaking them out neatly before leaving them with the young man.

  “Lord Azrael asked you to bring Miss Vogel directly.” Tyler’s voice cracked. “To his quarters.”

  Gregor’s mouth set in a long, hard line, but he gestured down the hall. It ended in a set of doors disguising an elevator, which took them deep below the castle to a long passageway lined with stone.

  “Azrael’s personal quarters are by the gardens,” he said with a little sniff that indicated his disapproval. “In the former riding school.”

  “He lives in a barn?”

  Gregor ignored her as they boarded a second elevator.

  “Why didn’t you just have the car take us there?”

  He forced the next words between gritted teeth. “Azrael’s preference is to keep up the belief that the main building of the castle is his home in every sense. We use the tunnels for coming and going to make it more difficult to track our movements on the grounds.”

  The elevator spat them out in a building that, compared to the castle, felt almost cozy, with soaring ceilings and enormous windows looking into the vast night-cloaked gardens. Even in semidarkness, she felt the enormity of the space. The building might have once been a stable, but now it was a carefully designed retreat. The ghosts of elegant, modern furniture edged from the shadows. They crossed hardwood floors so dark they were almost black.

  As she lagged behind on the stairs, Gregor cast a glance over his shoulder, his eyes wandering to her hip.

  “Lysippe was right,” he said idly. “You are defective.”

  “It’s not a defect,” she snapped. “And it’s only bad because I spent most of the night running for my life. I can still do the job I was brought here for.”

  “How unfortunate for you.” Gregor paused before an enormous, black wooden door to give her one long stare full of warning. “Do your job too well, and he will have to kill you.”

  Azrael could feel the tension between them before the door opened.

  Isela limped into the room, a half step behind Gregor. She came up short with a sharp exhale.

  Azrael hadn’t bothered to change from the carnage of the battle in the bookstore, and what was left of his shirt did little to cover the stark white bandage wrapped around his waist and lower ribs. Even his undead servants had balked at their master’s insistence that he would wait before ridding himself of the stench of demons and old blood. He dismissed them all after sending Gregor to retrieve Isela. He needed time alone to think and to wait for her.

  He took pride in the knowledge that he had the most formidable Aegis of all the allegiance. His first, Lysippe hand-picked each over hundreds of years. He had given each near immortality and preternatural fighting skills in exchange for their vow of service. Another one of the allegiance necromancers might have fallen tonight, wounded and overwhelmed by the enemy’s minions. But his Aegis fought until he was able to gather the strength to close the opening to the In Between and prevent any more demons from spilling through. His pride in them was unmatched.

  And what was he to make of Isela?

  Coming out of the summoning on the floor, dragging himself back from the ocean of pain, the first thing he saw was her taut body crouched over him. She’d brandished his knife, even as she stared disbelieving at the creature gathering strength across the room.

  Still, he considered with the ghost of a smile, she refused to be cowed.

  In hindsight, he should have ignored the PR team’s recommendation that she be seen publicly only with Gregor and sent Lysippe to retrieve her. He’d seen the entire exchange at the house through Gregor’s eyes. Gregor had seemed so calm, even after the discovery of the wreckage of his prized automobile. Azrael thought he could trust the Hessian to use diplomacy to retrieve her. But the witch’s spell blocking Gregor from the house had pushed him over the edge.

  It was Azrael that had kept him from doing battle with the wolves. Gregor had drawn his blade so fast Azrael almost missed the opportunity. Even as he’d snatched mental control of the man’s hand, he’d admired Gregor’s will and strength.

  He heard Isela’s demands through Gregor’s ears. He’d agreed to them, as much to prove a point to Gregor as a gesture of goodwill to her. The night had been full of surprises. Not only the revelation of the witches and their familiars, but the title of the powerful necromancer thought dead or lost to madness: the Queen of Diamonds.

  There was no reason he should have both as his enemies. Dancers had never been effective when coerced, and what Isela had done tonight—willingly, surrounded by the gore of a violent murder—spoke to her strength. If keeping her family safe motivated her to do the job, all the better.

  Gregor had gone too far tonight. It was unfortunate, but he had to be reminded of his place.

  Cultivating a cohort of soldiers who would fight to the death for him had taken centuries. He’d learned how to create the balance of trust and respect without destroying their spirits. He didn’t want broken men and women obeying out of fear. He wanted warriors: intelligent, confident, and unafraid to challenge him when he needed it. But also capable of following an order.

  It was a fine balance.

  Discipline, Gregor could respect. And what did Isela need?

  She stood before him now, a wreck in tattered clothes and injuries old and new. She was terrified and exhausted, but the rage she should have suppressed before him rose anyway. Her spine was erect.

  Instead of reacting, as he had the first time she let her anger overwhelm her, he read her mind, seeing her indignation at her family’s treatment and all her worry—for him.

  Azrael faltered. She had been afraid. The last she had seen, he was bleeding out on the floor of a basement surrounded by the carnage of another necromancer. The attack had surprised him, and without knowing any better, his surprise had added to her terror. She’d never been trained as a fighter beyond that martial class the Academy thought it kept hidden from him. Still, her instinct under attack had been to protect him.

  He expected as much from Gregor or Lysippe. But Isela, wielding her laughable little knife against a hellhound, was a revelation. She’d even struck a blow, wounding herself in the process. The damage would not be permanent, thanks to the witches.

  Perhaps he shouldn’t have been surprised at all by her actions, considering what Gregor had encountered at the Vogel house. She came from a combination of bloodlines that could have only resulted from the modern age of a world in chaos. Witch blood and wolf heart and trained to dance for gods.

  He remembered the warning from the allegiance: watch her carefully, the dancing may open her up to forces that cannot be allowed to come into this world. At the first sight of possession, she must be put down to maintain the equilibrium of the world they’d built.

  He’d just started to like her. He’d hate to have to kill her.

  “Will you sit?” he asked.

  Isela shook her head doggedly. “I’ll stand.”

  Gregor growled. She flinched but did not obey.

  Fine, Azrael decided. First thing’s first.

  He rose, still stiff with pain.

  He’d hoped to include Gregor in the conversation, but the information would have to come to him secondhand. Azrael had taxed himself in the basement and needed to recover his strength, but an example must be made—for both of them. He strode across the room, gathering power in his hand.

  “I didn’t give you the sword on your back to be wielded against innocents,” Azrael snarled.

  He felt Isela’s startled gaze on him as he moved faster than her human eyes would be able to t
rack.

  Gregor paled as he collapsed, his chest caving with the blow that sent his crushed ribs into his heart and lungs. He went to his knees on the floor, wheezing as blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. The door opened, and Lysippe entered silently, summoned by Azrael’s telepathic call.

  Azrael went to one knee beside his second, his words a thunderous murmur just loud enough for Isela to hear. “The next time I give an order, it will be obeyed. Second guess me again in a negotiation or disobey my order to abstain from violence, and I will use that sword to gut you.”

  Isela watched in horror, hand over her mouth, as Gregor folded on the floor, his chest a crumpled mass. He bowed his head in acknowledgment, and the whispered gargle of a single word escaped him, “Jawohl.”

  Azrael stood, wiping his bloodied hand on his pants as he looked to Lysippe. “Take him away.”

  Lysippe crouched down to scoop up Gregor. She lifted him as easily as a child and with some of the same gentleness. The door slid shut silently behind them.

  Isela opened her mouth and, just as quickly, closed it.

  “I apologize for how you were brought here tonight,” Azrael said. “Gregor should have maintained his discipline.”

  “Is he—” Isela fumbled for words.

  Azrael shook his head. “He’ll recover. He needed to be reminded of his role.”

  Isela let out a noise that might have been a sob—or a laugh. “I hope your PR team has a plan B, because Gregor’s really going to hate me.”

  “He already does, Isela,” Azrael said calmly. “At least what you do to him.”

  When her eyes turned on him, he saw pain and confusion. The burgeoning desire to protect her stoked a possessive fire in him.

  “You have a way of bringing back the humanity in them,” he said. “Lysippe is not afraid to care for you, but Gregor would prefer not to be reminded of what he once was.”

  “Once was,” she echoed softly. “What is he now?”

  “When he came to my service, I gave him his sword and my protection,” Azrael explained. “In exchange, he entrusted me with his mortal soul.”

  Isela laughed, coughing. “You have—his soul—somewhere, like in a jar on a shelf or something?”

  She wavered, but when he stretched out a hand to guide her to a chair, she moved away.

  “Or something.” He sighed. “Are you going to continue to be frightened by everything that moves, or can we sit down and get the conversation out of the way so you can get to your shower?”

  He watched her weigh her options. Finally she moved to the seat that he had abandoned by the fire.

  Isela eased into it, keeping her right leg straight and resting on her left side. Now that he was aware, he could see how she held herself in ways to protect the injury but hide it from others. Interesting.

  He went to the mahogany liquor cabinet next to the window overlooking the garden and poured two scotches—adding an extra finger’s worth to his own. He sat opposite her, offering a glass, but she shook her head. He set it down on the armchair table between them, closing his eyes as he swirled the amber liquid restlessly in his glass.

  Giving her information before had proved to calm her. He hoped it would again.

  “It’s the closest to immortality I can give them,” he said. “And the least they deserve in return for what they must abandon, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Their humanity,” she murmured.

  He opened one eye and lifted his glass in affirmation. “Death is not always unwelcome.” He paused. “Tell me about what happened tonight.”

  “What happened?”

  “This can go fast or slow, up to you.”

  Isela sat up a little straighter, reached for her glass, and took a long swallow. He winced as she coughed and sputtered, her eyes tearing as her throat burned.

  “Sip, Little Bird.”

  “Don’t call me that,” she choked.

  Azrael waited patiently.

  “I was dancing,” she said after she regained her breath. “And the light touched me.”

  “The light?”

  “My shadow,” she stammered. “I don’t know what it is. It dances with me.”

  He listened as she explained with growing confidence, the presence that appeared first as a glimmer in the corner of her eye and later as a figure that mirrored her every move.

  “It never touched me before,” she said. “It shocked me. I thought my heart stopped, and I was aware of the room again. I knew something was wrong, that something bad was going to happen. I think it warned me—”

  Warned her—or it had been distracting her in some way? Azrael thought of the gold blade Havel Zeman’s contorted spirit had plunged into his chest. Were they connected?

  He wondered if she noticed how her voice softened and her cheeks warmed when she described his command to run.

  It was the only thing Azrael could think of in the heat of the moment. Isela hadn’t been about to move, he realized now, not just out of fear but also a concern for him he still found bewildering. He’d bundled a precious burst of power and sent it into her, commanding her to run. But he could not have controlled what she did with it. He listened carefully as she related fleeing, in the car and on foot, and described the demons.

  Not a warrior but with the heart of one, he thought of Lysippe’s words, as she finished her story.

  He wished he’d thought to extend Gregor’s punishment. It would take a miracle to repair his relationship with the coven. And the wolves might never trust him. He had to hope taking better care of Isela from here on out would help.

  “And do you see it now?” he asked when she grew quiet.

  Isela looked at him blankly, and Azrael realized how utterly exhausted she was. The well of her strength had been tapped dry.

  “The light,” he pressed quietly, setting down his glass.

  Resting his elbows on his knees, he leaned forward slightly. When she didn’t pull away, he knew it was time. She shook her head softly.

  “No, it’s gone,” she said. “Like it never was.”

  Azrael cradled her fingertips, pleased she didn’t pull away.

  “Azrael,” she said, the ragged tone of her voice stopped him in his tracks.

  The memory of the sound of his name in her scream struck him still. The warning laced with terror. He heard it again in her voice: concern. This fragile human, with no reason to think him anything more than a monster, cared for him.

  “Who is the Queen of Diamonds?” she asked.

  Azrael went cold, drawing back, and Isela flinched.

  “You whispered it,” she said. “Before you—”

  Isela finished the remnants of her glass, making a face. She flushed as his eyes settled knowingly on her.

  “There’s something in the research you sent,” she said. “A necromancer and a dancer. They’re mentioned a handful of times, then nothing. Is it her?”

  Isela was too fast for her own good. It was the risk he’d taken when he’d given her information no human should know. She was too close to connecting pieces that would endanger her further.

  “Something was missing from the room when we got there,” Azrael said to distract her. “Yet I can’t see it. Do you remember it?”

  Isela closed her eyes, and for a moment he wondered if she was going to fall asleep. He started to read her memory, knowing that forcing her recollection might break the fragile peace they’d found, when he realized she had retreated into her own stillness. Fascinated, he waited for her mind to prepare the scene and slipped into her memory with her.

  When Isela closed her eyes, she saw the room again—the bloodbath it had been even before demons had begun to manifest from the shadows.

  “It’s called an aedis,” Azrael supplied, and in her mind’s eye she stood beside him, surveying the space. “The room.”

  She remembered the sense of déjà vu that struck her upon entering her mother’s hidden room behind the studio. It had been similar in so many ways: the long c
ounter and shelves lined with jars and containers. And on the center island, a giant book on an angled pedestal Bebe referenced as she assembled contents in a small stone bowl.

  Isela’s memory took them back to Havel Zeman’s little room again: the bloodied walls and bits of flesh scattered all around her. She turned a slow circle, extended fingers reaching to touch something that should have been there.

  “The book,” she said, stopping before the empty lectern.

  Azrael murmured, “A grimoire.”

  The sense of him beside her in her memories vanished. When she opened her eyes, she was surprised to see him standing across the room. “What?”

  “Grimoire,” he said impatiently. “It’s a book of spells. Necromancers collect them.”

  “You have one?”

  Azrael dismissed the question with a wave. “I have several hundred. But I’ve been around for a while. I wasn’t paying attention in the summoning. It was there on the counter. Old—much too old for a second-rate soul reader like Zeman. When we got there, it was gone.”

  Hundreds. Just how old was he?

  “How long?” she asked before she could check herself.

  Azrael looked at her blankly.

  “How long have you been around for?”

  It seemed to take him a moment to realize what she’d asked. Azrael turned on one heel and studied her.

  “I am very old,” he said cautiously.

  “How old?”

  “I was born somewhere on the plains shadowed by the Caucus mountains,” he said slowly. “Before the common era.”

  Isela jerked as her body made one more attempt to follow its most instinctive urge: flee.

  “Christ,” she muttered.

  Azrael’s mouth canted. “I never got to meet him.”

  “You’re two thousand years old?”

  “Plus or minus,” he said. “The records weren’t very good in those days, and once I stopped aging, it was easy to lose track.”

  “Stopped aging?” she said lightly. “That must be convenient.”