Isela waited for his eyes to come back from whatever deep focus he’d gained. Instead he dipped his head again.
Isela advanced to the table opposite him. She braced her hands, bending down and angling her head so that she fell into his line of vision. She glanced down at the book before him. The page was illustrated with colorful drawings of plants and rocks, tiny expert lettering in a language she didn’t recognize. “Is that an elf?”
“No such thing,” Azrael said with a sigh, closing the book. Isela leaned back to avoid getting her nose caught in the pages. At her expression, he clarified. “Elves.”
Isela gaped. “You mean there are zombies and shape-shifters and phoenixes, and gods only knows what else roaming the planet. But no elves?”
His brows rose. Azrael cocked his head in that absent way she’d learned to associate with his telepathic connections to his Aegis. He straightened his spine, banking the fire in the hearth with a wave of one hand.
“And to the question about sanctuary, no.”
Isela followed him out of the room. She caught up in the long hallway toward the elevators. “Excuse me… Did you even hear what I said?”
“I heard.” Azrael waited until she was inside before pressing the button that took them to the passage leading to his quarters. “If it wanted sanctuary, it should have presented itself here, to me. Instead, it kidnapped you on the tram.”
Isela frowned. “Kidnapping? I could have broken the hold anytime. I just didn’t want to draw attention—”
“Like what happened in the center of Old Town Square?” Azrael’s brows rose. “It’s going to take days to make every last video of that disappear, and I have my entire team scrubbing the feeds.”
Isela was silent all the way to the kitchen. He sniffed at the remaining coffee, poured a cup, and heated it in his hand on the way up to the bedroom. Frowning, Isela followed. She watched him disappear into the closet.
“The phoenix had a message for me,” she called after him. “Maybe he knows more—”
Azrael emerged with a small travel bag. He shook his head. “Phoenixes cannot be made to easily cooperate.”
“Yes, but it sought me out,” she said. “It wants to tell me something. Maybe I could meet it halfway.”
He folded his arms over his chest and his eyes narrowed.
“Gold,” Isela began. “That is, the god, she spoke with him.” Silence. She cleared her throat. “Well, she tried to. Whatever has happened to him, he’s coming apart. She doesn’t think his body is going to hold. So I was thinking she could help us.”
“No.”
Isela paused. “Dante knows your library like the back of his hand. Maybe he and I could work together—”
“I want you nowhere near the creature.”
Isela felt Gold crackle to her skin as she struggled for words. “You what?”
“Did you hear what I just said?” He cocked his head, sipping at his coffee over a little smile.
Isela fought the urge to throw something at him. This was the same argument all over again. Would he let her do nothing?
“I can sit in the library all day trying to learn, but wouldn’t it be more practical if I had something to work on? Like a project.”
Azrael shook his head. “Whatever it’s been through has changed it. I do not trust it.”
“We don’t have to trust it to help it,” Isela began. “Especially if it could help us.”
“I forbid it.”
“But I want to help,” Isela said. “And Gold will protect me. After all, my skin is her skin now, so she won’t let anything… What?”
He had gone absolutely still again, but this time without the calm intensity of focus. His distant eyes seemed turned inward, and she watched tension crawl his shoulders as his lips pressed into a tight line. He shook his head once in response to something unheard, and when his eyes returned to her, something unfamiliar lingered in their depths. His eyes roved her, hot and possessive. She had seen him burn with rage and go icy with control. But this was neither.
“This abomination of a phoenix accosts you in the middle of my city,” Azrael said, a new edge in his voice. “In broad daylight.”
She shivered. “He was trying to warn—”
“In the heart of my territory,” he roared. “My consort.”
When she paused, the part of her that had once responded to him as prey to a predator quailed, but she refused to back down. Gold, I might need you in a minute.
“Our city, Azrael.” She imbued his name with all that lay between them: love and longing and loyalty. “You’re not alone anymore.”
Azrael’s quiet returned like a wave. The sense of any emotion in him died away. His eyes caught the light from the window and shone as he looked out over the gardens.
He sighed. “Covens are trickling into the city, seeking protection I have guaranteed as part of my alliance with the high priestess. Others will be next: shifters like your brothers and broken things like that phoenix. Never mind the human population.”
Isela’s eyes stung. In another necromancer’s territory, her mother and her sisters-in-law would be hunted for revealing themselves as they had. And her own brothers. Their ability to become wolves at will put them among the creatures living in the shadows at the whim of the necromancers.
“And you will have to protect all of us,” she said. “But you don’t have to do it alone. I can help. The god—”
The door chimed.
“Go away,” Isela barked as Azrael called, “Come.”
“This isn’t over.” She followed Azrael down the stairs to the kitchen.
Tyler paused in the living room, glancing between them. “My lord, Gregor is on his way in the chopper, and the plane is ready.”
“Fine.” Azrael dismissed his report with a wave of one hand.
Isela recognized the bag in his hand. “You’re leaving.”
“Dr. Sato,” Azrael said. “A moment.”
Tyler did not look at her as he departed. Isela braced her hands on the counter and forced a deep breath into her lungs.
“I have to go away for a few days.” Azrael moved toward her, and she could read the longing in his face.
She swallowed hard, putting the island between them. “Where?”
“A small town near the Black Sea.” He sighed. “It’s disputed territory between Vanka and me. I’ve never been able to keep a proper hold on it. I’ve had reports that she’s been there, searching for something. I need to know what it is and if she found it.”
“What if she’s still there?” she said. “Isn’t that dangerous?”
“I’m taking Gregor with me.” He smiled faintly. “Consider it a gift. Lysippe is already on the ground.”
Isela crossed her arms over her chest. “And the city?”
“Rory and the others will look after it,” Azrael said. “And you. Tariq will see to your training. You’ll find him a more forgiving teacher.”
No longer sharp with the weight of decisions, his voice made her think of his touch in the night, his arms sliding around her when she tossed in a nightmare or woke brokenhearted with grief. She closed her eyes. She was to be handed off in his absence like a child. She had chosen him, and in doing so she had chosen this life.
He would enter disputed territory where he might run into that homicidal redheaded necromancer. The injustice burned in her throat. Now she would worry about him—and Gregor and Lysippe—alone against gods only knew who, doing what gods only knew what. While she was safe in her gilded prison. She wished she could hate him or feel grateful. Either would have been easier. The sound of footsteps bringing him closer drove her backward. She bumped into the L-shaped counter by the sink and rebounded away, toward the dining room.
Azrael stopped. “I must go.”
She faced the windows overlooking the garden and focused on the buds appearing at the edges of long, dark branches of trees. She didn’t hear him leave.
Part II
Chapter Eight
Azrael didn’t blame the pilot for her hurry—based on the clouds boiling across the horizon, she didn’t have a lot of time. It didn’t help that this was disputed territory with Vanka—technically his after Róisín had descended into madness and abdicated her holdings, but his ability to manage the borders was less than complete. He and Vanka simply turned a blind eye to each other’s presence here until a final reckoning could be taken. He knew he had, at most, a few days until she found out about his arrival. Depending on what she had found and her remaining interest in the area, he would either be allowed to depart uncontested, or he’d have to fight his way out.
At least he wouldn’t be alone. Never that. The metal stairs clanged behind him as Gregor disembarked, shouldering a black carryall and tossing down a second bag of gear.
A decade after the war for American Independence ended, Gregor had the unfortunate luck to be taken when his ship was captured by pirates en route to Europe. The captain, a necromancer whose rivalry with Azrael had reached a fever pitch, turned his crew of undead loose on the prisoners. Gregor succeeded in bashing in the skulls of three before the necromancer called his men off and threw the young soldier in the brig.
“I am dead twice now to everyone who knew me.” Gregor told the darkness of the hold, chained beside the cage holding Azrael by iron and geas. “And it seems I am now to become something unholy. Or food for it.” He kicked a bare skull across the hold.
It was that simple forthrightness, tinged with wry humor, that lifted Azrael’s focus from his own predicament. His rival was stronger than he’d anticipated, and his bonds were firm. His own crew waited for his call. He could feel Lysippe’s anxiety growing, but he urged her to have patience. After 2,000 years, he could bear much it seemed.
Until Gregor. His time as soldier was obvious in his economy of movement and speech. Though it wasn’t unheard of to find a minor noble serving in the more elite jäger units, this one held none of the pretensions Azrael expected of his breeding. He was no gentleman—though he was dressed in the latest fashions, his skin was tanned and wind roughed, his hands scarred with labor and shoulders broad with work. Most of the Hessian mercenaries serving under the British had gone back immediately; a few remained to carve out new lives in the young country. This one was something of an enigma. And then there were his eyes. Haunted and blue like the sky over a battlefield. What had happened to him in the New World was a story that roused Azrael from his ennui. Humans like Gregor always had that effect on him.
“Do you play?” the young nobleman asked, his gaze falling to the forgotten chessboard and its broken pieces in the corner of Azrael’s cell. “If I am to remain until it’s my turn to be fodder, I’d like to keep my mind occupied.”
No question of how Azrael had come to be caged, or why caged when the others were chained, or how he had remained alive, bearded and thin as he was, for so long. Gregor repeated his inquiry in three languages. At last, he reached fearlessly through the bars.
“Don’t touch it.” The words were forced from Azrael’s throat as if dragged across gravel. “The only thing more dangerous than the crew is friendship with me.”
Gregor sat back on his haunches but didn’t withdraw completely. He assessed Azrael’s tattered clothing and filthy skin.
“You are the pearl trapped in this hellish oyster. Does he hope to wear you down, with all of this… carnage?” He gestured around them.
Azrael almost smiled. Almost.
Gregor withdrew. He sat in silence, eyes closed for a long time.
Azrael leaned against the bars nearest the rough-hewn wall, feeling the pounding of the waves the other side. He could burn the ship down with a thought. And drown himself in the process.
“I shall be dark, and you play the light,” Azrael said finally, waving his fingers.
A ghost image identical to the board in the corner materialized between them. Gregor’s eyes widened, but he did not flinch away or make religious symbols against evil. Curious. Even nobles were superstitious.
Azrael called out his first move, and the ghost image of the piece slid across the board. Gregor got the hang of it quickly. After several days, Azrael stopped materializing the board entirely. They called out pieces and positions, each holding the game move by move in their minds until one declared checkmate and the other sighed ruefully. Conversation came later, stories, haltingly.
The board never moved from its forgotten corner, but it didn’t take long for the captain to discover the companionship between them. Suddenly Azrael found he could no longer watch and wait.
With preternatural insight, Gregor woke the following morning, resolved. “I’d take my chances with your lot if you would have me, sir.”
Azrael grinned. He couldn’t help himself. “What makes you think I have any chance at all?”
Gregor lifted a pin from one of the hinges of Azrael’s cell, flipping it in his palm. Azrael blinked. When had he managed that?
“During your last”—Gregor glanced at him—“interrogation.”
A day before.
“I’ve discerned that you are not able to touch the bars,” Gregor explained. “So I took the liberty.”
“And yet you waited?” Azrael mused.
“For the word to be forthcoming.”
Azrael assessed the wall. The cell had been assembled from hinged panels attached top and bottom with identical pins. “One pin.”
“Actually…” Gregor pulled back the old scraps of fabric that made up his bedding and revealed more. “I’d thought to take the last today, but perhaps we are out of time.”
“Perhaps.”
Gregor held Azrael’s stare. If anything, his shoulders straightened and he cleared his throat lightly as if preparing to present himself to a superior officer. There were footsteps on the deck overhead.
“You’d best attend to that last pin,” Azrael said, settling in his cell.
When the captain came for his daily round of brutality, Gregor fought just enough to pull the captain’s thugs close to the cell wall. When they yanked him away, he had a grip on the bars and simply pulled the walls apart. Azrael stepped through the gap as the wards bound to the cell dissolved. It ended quickly. Gregor stood unflinching as Azrael rose from the ruined corpse of his rival.
He’d displayed only marginally more surprise when Azrael’s people had boarded the ship and subdued the crew. Lysippe was at their head. Rory and Dory cleaned up anything left moving in her wake. They broke into the hold, taking in the stench of rotted remains.
“He comes with us.” Azrael greeted his crew with a gesture toward Gregor.
Lysippe jingled keys, stepping lightly over the remains of the captain. “Your hands.”
Emaciated and broken, Gregor had not lowered his eyes to their liberators, nor did his gaze hold the disdain many men of his time held for her sex or the color of her skin. Instead, he had looked curious as he offered his wrists. “Thank you, lady.”
Lysippe rolled her eyes, but a little grin tugged her mouth as she shook the rusted shackles free, being careful of his bloodied wrists. Dory carried him out of the hold. Eyes the color of a battlefield sky paused briefly on Aleifr beheading the last of the undead. The rest of Azrael’s crew piled the bodies and doused them for burning. There was no horror or fear in Gregor’s gaze, only a greedy, squinting joy at the sunlight on his face and the fresh salt air.
“You will stay with us until you’ve made a recovery,” Azrael informed Gregor as they boarded a smaller vessel and the first torches were cast onto the abandoned ship. “Then we will drop you at whatever port you require. I owe you that much at least.”
“I have nothing to return to,” Gregor said,
looking around at the small and unusual crew. “If it suits, I should like to travel with you a while.”
Gregor accepted Azrael’s explanation of being a gentleman of fortune and leisure with an interest in pursuing the occult from all over the world but kept his own counsel. He didn’t ask questions about how Azrael traveled with such an unusual accompaniment or the mysterious things he witnessed in their presence. Even years later, when they had abandoned the ship in search of an ancient grimoire made of human flesh, he proved a fearless companion and made himself useful at every turn. And he was the only member of the party who ever bested Azrael in chess.
One afternoon, camped in a desert basin shadowed by the Altai Mountains, Lysippe brought the last bottle of claret to Azrael where he waited out the glare of sun and heat. After pouring two generous servings in battered cups and pausing for a toast, she announced, “Give him the Gift.”
Azrael shook his head but took a drink. “Eight is a good number. Perfection beyond that which nature is capable of.”
“Nine is three triads,” she countered. “There is power of threes.”
They drank in companionable silence. Descended from Amazons, Lysippe’s way reminded him most of her mother when she hunted, sitting in perfect stillness for hours and waiting for the moment to strike. As the sun descended and the others began packing camp for their departure, he sighed, drained his cup, and extended it for a refill. As she poured, he realized it had been exactly the moment she waited for.
“He’s been tested,” she said. “And broken. If you don’t take him, he won’t live long. That would be a loss.”
“This isn’t exactly living, Lys,” Azrael said, his own brows raised.
“Then let him be useful while it lasts. He’s handy with a blade and a damn good shot.”
Azrael had noticed. More than one of the Aegis had taken to training with him, ostensibly to help him recover his strength. And, for all his dislike of horses, the man could drive a team better than anyone but Lysippe.
Dancer's Flame (Grace Bloods Book 2) Page 8
