by A. J. Aalto
“I can say with confidence that he’s a dude who speaks at a court. Since this is the same kind of invitation with the fancy gold writing that I got when the Overlord accepted my invitation to show up at Shaw’s Fist that one time, I’m gonna go ahead and give you a solid sixty percent chance that the court has something to do with revenants.” It’s not every day you get a formal invitation from the demon king Asmodeus hizzownself, and that’s something you don’t tend to forget.
Batten glared. “Sixty percent?”
“Fifty,” I said, pointing at him with the card. “Okay, forty. But those revenant names are a big clue to, uh, bad stuff. And my presence probably makes the bad stuff forecast like a hundred and six percent with a chance of shit storm overnight.”
“Why are you being invited to court?”
“I get invited places,” I said defensively, complete with bluffing scowl.
“No you don’t.” Batten scowled back. “Not for good reasons.”
“Cocktail party?” I guessed. “Witness an execution? Orgy? Man, I hope it’s not an orgy. That’s a lot of undead wang.”
Batten held up a hand to cut me off, and sought patience in the darkness of his closed eyelids again. He ran his tongue along the front of his teeth before speaking. “I don’t like sharing you with one bloodsucker; I’m not sharing you with seventeen others.”
I did a quick head count. “There were only eight.”
“Eight is out, too,” he said loudly, as though it shouldn’t need saying. That made me forget my impending death for a moment, and I grinned at him.
“You like me lots, huh?”
Those deep, lake water blue eyes warned of a storm brewing. “Less by the moment, so keep talking.”
I put the invitation down and came around to his side of the desk, propping my butt on it. “The card says a guide will meet us in Hammerfest, Norway. I am assuming they take us through the Bitter Pass to this court.”
He shook his head slowly. “You’re not going to Hammerfest.”
“I have to. Besides, you’re missing something.”
“There’s more?”
“Remember BugBelly the weird, smelly orc mystic?”
“Choosing to forget the weird, smelly orc mystic,” he informed me tiredly.
“Well, sorry to fuck your brain right in the eye, but that orc mentioned Hammerfest, too,” I reminded him, reaching back onto the desk for my lime Moleskine. I flipped the pages and then showed him my scribbled notes. Mostly it said Hammerfest? And: What a bitchin’ name for a town. And then: The exiles return. On the back of the page, I’d written the last note: What the figgity-fuck is a “worm forge?”
I didn’t let Batten see that bit.
He asked, “It doesn’t say why you’re supposed to show up?”
“Nope.” I shook my head. “But I can promise you that if Harry is summoned to the Bitter Pass, he’ll go. And I’m expected to go with him. I can’t imagine he’ll ask you to go without my input, but you seem like the obvious choice to me. I wouldn’t bring Golden or de Cabrera. Bringing Wes would be even worse.” With his penchant for feeding revenants and the ability of immortals for sniffing out willing throats, Gary Chapel would be the last person I’d take to face a whole group of them. I left this unsaid, but I suspected Batten was thinking the same thing. I watched emotions flit across his face, wishing for the millionth time that I could use my psychic Talents to suss him out.
“Malas Nazaire,” he said.
“Still have a warrant to stake him?”
He nodded once. “In my kit.”
“And Prost?”
“Same.”
“Would you? If you could?”
He cut his eyes at me. “In a heartbeat.”
I thought about Declan Edgar, that funny little Irishman whom I’d assumed was a leprechaun, although leprechauns had been extinct since the early fifteenth century. He’d turned out to be a dhampir, born of a human mother and a revenant on his third day of his turning, just before the last drop of humanity left him forever. In Declan’s case, the revenant daddy in question was either Malas himself, or Harry's sire, Prince Wilhelm Dreppenstedt; his mother, Remy, had been turned against her will soon after giving birth by House Dreppenstedt to raise the dhampir child. Someone had had different ideas; Declan had been removed from his mother’s care, and Remy had been banished to somewhere called the Darkest Corner. Talk about a dysfunctional family. The rest of Declan’s history was spotty at best and horrifying in places, but my experience with him at the PCU had been, for the most part, wonderful (despite my bitching about him). When he’d had the chance to help me with some seriously nasty zombie shit, he had; then he’d helped Malas escape from a fairly effective prison on the off-chance that Malas would keep his word and help him find his mother.
If Declan was listed as Nazaire’s DaySitter by the Falskaar Vouras, I was assuming Malas had either kept that promise or was stringing Declan along. Was Declan Edgar feeding his immortal maybe-daddy? That made me feel vaguely squinky inside. What would it be like to see them both? I liked Declan. I understood what he did, and even most of why he did it. I didn’t like Malas being on the loose, especially since he was a murderous bastard who'd helped a necromancer breed hybrid zombies and nearly released a plague of them in Colorado. I was still having nightmares about torching muumuu-wearing she-zombies, and some nights I jerked awake screaming, “Don’t fuck with the Mega Max!”
“Does Hammerfest have an airport?” Batten asked.
“I sure as hell hope so,” I said. “I wonder how far away the Bitter Pass is. I wonder if they’ll blindfold us.”
“Assuming that taking my kit is pointless,” he said.
“Pretty sure they’ll be frisking for rowan wood long before you get to court,” I told him seriously, dropping my gaze to his ankles out of curiosity as much as habit. There was a bulge under his jeans at each; one would be the Taurus, his backup gun, and the other would be a rowan wood stake in a sheath. I didn’t think I had time to investigate him for other lumps of concealed weapons, but the urge to frisk Kill-Notch’s hard body was always present.
I looked back down at the invitation, which wasn’t an invitation at all but a summons; the flowery gold script, the cheerful smiley face drawn underneath Asmodeus’ signature and His title: Overlord of the Falskaar Vouras, Prince of the Second Circle, King of Lust, and Banker at the Baccarat Table of Hell. A goddamned smiley face. He knew I'd gotten laid, the smug, sassy, three-headed creeper.
“Guess I’d better take this home to Harry. He’ll be wondering about the text.” I considered Batten again, trying not to ogle. It was really good to see him again, even clothed. I hated the vulnerability of missing Jerkface, and feeling like maybe he didn’t miss me nearly as much. How had I let him become such a big part of my life, especially in the process of gaining my career independence? How had I reached a point where I was tempted to trust him completely? “If he asks you to act as my Second, are you going to say yes?”
“I’ll think about it.”
That was better than a no, and I knew better than to push; Batten would make up his own mind on his own schedule. I straightened the papers on the desk and peeked at him once more before getting into my parka. He glanced at the surface of the desk, checked out my boobs as I did my zipper up, and then grinned up at me. The enticement in those dark blue eyes grabbed me low in the belly. He leaned further back into his chair and his legs fell open in unspoken invitation; if I hadn’t been running late already, I’d have… nope, better to put that out of my mind for the time being. I had a flight to book as soon as possible.
I ogled his lap to reassure him of my continued temptation, then smiled and gave him a little finger wave that reminded me of the twerp across the street. For a second, I considered telling him about the noobtacular dealer we had for a neighbor then thought it might be more fun to watch him make the discovery himself. “I’ll be in touch.”
He just grinned.
“It doesn’t always
have to be about crotch-touching, Kill-Notch.”
He didn’t look like he was buying it. When I left, he was still grinning.
Chapter 6
Harry, Wes, and I lived in the last cabin in a row of old converted summer cottages on Shaw’s Fist Road, which was little more than a stone path through dense forest leading to and around the mountain lake of the same name. The cabin wasn’t the ideal place for someone of Lord Guy Harrick Dreppenstedt’s stature, but it was perfectly cozy, if a bit worse for wear. Harry had spoken with a builder to look at upgrading the kitchen, but I hadn’t committed to anything beyond replacing the old linoleum, which was still scorched from some assbag's Molotov cocktail before he got turned into a zombie and I blew him up. I guess I hadn’t replaced it because I liked the reminder of our survival. Vampire hunters: 0, Marnie: 1.
Coming home to a single, exposed bulb lighting up the porch through the snow gave me the warm fuzzies. In the trees to the west, I could hear the bickering between Harry’s debt vulture, Ajax, and Wesley’s own vulture, which he’d named Homer. Harry had been mildly impressed with the literary choice until Wes admitted that he'd named the bird after the cartoon character. I pulled into my driveway, a little after dusk, and through our Bond I could feel Harry, awake and uncomplainingly hungry, moving through the cabin. There was smoke curling lazily out of the wood stove's chimney, and the air carried the comforting tang of it to me as soon as I got out of the car.
There was a strange mark on my front door. Under the fine, harsh glow of the halogen, it looked like a fancy arrow drawn in chocolate. I draw stuff there all the time; usually dicks, to amuse myself and the UPS lady. This was the first time someone else had scrawled something there. I shifted from foot to foot uncertainly for a moment, snow crunching under my Keds, then went ahead and sniffed the mark hesitantly.
Shit. Definitely shit. There’s a poop arrow on my door. If it was a green arrow, it might have been a superhero symbol, but I was pretty sure the Toxic Avenger didn't use an arrow as his calling card. Was this some random, drive-by fecal graffiti? Did my neighbors suffer similar nonsense? Or was it a message to me from a shitty admirer? Was it a threat? Did someone wanna shoot me in the butt? The fact that this didn’t surprise me at all was mildly depressing. The fact that it could be many people wasn’t reassuring, either.
“Okay, shitstain, your artiste better have their act together. I've had badass training.” It wasn't just bluster and bravado, either. Rob Hood had been dragging me out of bed five days a week for hand-to-hand combat, agility drills, time at the gun range, and runs through the forest, and Harry had done absolutely nothing to dissuade him. To the contrary, my Cold Company would usually set out a small cooler with bottled water and fruit while Hood was kicking my ass, so we wouldn't leave sweaty drip trails from the front door to the kitchen. It was working, too; I'd even given Hood a shiner when I caught him with a surprise elbow, and he was occasionally breathing heavily enough that he couldn't laugh at me. Harry also made me join him during his yoga practice, and while he would tsk softly and adjust my poses, there was no hiding the pleasure that trickled through the Bond as I got into positions that used to end up with me squawking and flailing and toppling over like a drunken game of Jenga. And other positions in Harry's basement lair, afterward, which Wes had finally learned to tune out.
I rolled my eyes up to the brittle stars and searched for the smug, winking one. Sure enough, it was there. “I don’t wanna know,” I told the Cosmos, but it wasn’t the Cosmos that answered.
The Blue Sense reported with a cold jolt that something other than the debt vultures was watching me; Hood's attempts at teaching me personal defense kicked in immediately as I felt someone approach. I tried to drop before they got a hold on me, but I'd miscalculated how fast they were. Two strong arms snatched me, encircling me at waist level, trapping my arms at my sides. I dropped again, forcing my attacker's body down, and then tried to jerk my shoulder up to hit them in the face. I didn’t have a good enough target. Their head back too far for me to connect. I clutched at my assailant's arms in an attempt to pry their fingers off me while my brain demanded, Where the hell are Harry and Wes? I’m gonna die on the fucking porch, twenty feet from my revenants?
I cut a glance at my attacker’s footwear as their arms tightened further; running shoes laced with red muck. I went to stomp on their instep, but the second I lifted my weight off that leg, they danced aside, still not letting go of their relentless grip.
The arms tightened a notch more and then stopped. That gave him away. This was no normal attacker. He wasn’t trying to drag me off into the cover of the dark woods. He wasn’t trying to throw me down. There wasn’t a strange vehicle nearby to toss me into.
I flared my nostrils to draw in his underscent; although he’d spit out his eucalyptus mint before attacking me, the scent lingered.
I smirked, giving up the struggle. “If this is your way of telling me you’re madly in love with me, your seduction methods need a lot of work, Hood.”
He grunted unhappily when I stopped fighting back. “You failed, and now you’re dead.”
“That kinda sexy talk is not gonna work with me.”
He dropped his arms. “Who are you kidding? That’s the only kind of sexy talk that would work with you.”
Point: Hood. I stepped out of his hold and turned to face him. Sheriff Hood was a freckle-faced country boy, a natural redhead with a confident stride and an easygoing, forgiving nature; it was a good thing, too, since I’d blown up the shambling zombie that was once his chief deputy.
“Sorry, sheriff. Knew it was you. Stopped trying because you’re my friend and I was afraid I’d hurt you.”
He snort-laughed. “We try again next week.” The corners of his mouth turned down. “How’d you know it was me?”
“One, neither of the dead guys bothered to help me, which means they were expecting this to happen. Two, you only tightened to the point where I was stuck, not to where I couldn’t breathe or it hurt my ribs. Three, I can smell you. You smell like you. You might want to get some strange cologne to throw me off before trying again. And, most annoyingly, four, you anticipated and countered all my moves because they’re the ones you taught and drilled with me. A regular attacker wouldn’t know my repertoire.”
Hood nodded. “Noted. Next time, I crack a rib, if that’s what it takes to get this lesson through your thick skull.”
“The crap arrow was a nice touch. It made me pause long enough to give you a chance to attack.”
“The what?” He stared at my front door. “I didn’t do that. Are you sure it’s shit?”
I blinked with surprise. “Taste for yourself, but that sure ain't Godiva.”
He stepped closer to the door to peer at it, wrinkled his nose in disgust, and asked, “You wanna file a vandalism complaint?”
“Nah. Poop arrows happen.” I propped my gloved hands on my hips. “Next week doesn’t work for me.”
“You better have a good reason,” Hood said.
“I'll be in Norway saving the world from a troll invasion. I'm some kind of orcish war goddess or something.”
He looked me up and down, and shot me a two-fingered salute as he started back up the driveway. “You’ve got a weird life, Mars.”
I shouted at his retreating form, “Says the cop who attacked me on my own front porch. How long have you been freezing your gingersnaps off out here, anyways?”
“Harry told me when your flight was due in.”
“You need to get a life, Hood. You know what kind of people hang around their self-defense students' houses for hours around the holidays? Stalkers and psychopaths.”
I watched him go, admiring his lithe physicality in a purely clinical fashion. The complete lack of sexual appetite I had for Rob Hood made little sense to me; my badge-bunny instincts lusted for cops, and he was physically and emotionally solid. Maybe it was the hair? I’d never been into redheads or blondes. Just as well. Hood treated me like the little sister he’d
never had, clay to mold, an ass to boot into shape. That was something I was quite content to have continue. Despite tonight’s failure, I felt way more competent since Chapel had asked Hood to train me. Each run made me faster and increased my endurance, every trip to the gun range made me sharper, every training class taught me new defensive tactics. Batten didn’t give me any credit for improvements, and Harry liked to roll his eyes, but I didn’t need their approval. I approved.
There was a big fire crackling in the sitting room when I got inside, but neither of my coldblooded housemates were huddled near it. I felt Harry’s presence downstairs in his chambers, and Wesley was already lurking in my office. It bugged me that someone had vandalized my front door while I was gone without Harry eating them, or at least making whoever it was unload some crap in their own pants. I didn't want to have to ask Chapel or Heather or Elian to check on the house while I was in Norway, lest I come home to an orgy of garden gnomes and a mailbox full of bat dicks. Wes would only be so much use, which is to say, minimal at night and none whatsofuckingever during the day.
Wesley came out to see me in the hall. “You’re going to Norway? Is that where the portal is, like BugBelly said? The invitation didn’t mention me? Aw, come on. I’m staying here? Who’s gonna help me learn the spell stuff? This blows.”
Halfway to a tantrum and I haven’t said a word. “Can I get my coat off before you go blasting through my brain cells, Captain Dude-witch?”
“Sorry,” Wes said, wilting.
A jingle told me that Bob the Cat was playing with a catnip toy in the sitting room, and his claws made grabbing, tearing noises on the rag rug in there. He’d be fine for a while without me, but he loved the revenants, and would miss Harry terribly.
Wes said, “Yeah, but I’ll watch him. I'll even do the bat thing so we can wrestle.”
“I didn’t say anything out loud. Again.”
“I’m getting better, though, right?” My baby brother showed me his one hopeful eye and wrung his hands. It was mostly playful, but there was a desire for approval under his mocking. He was two steps ahead of me again, but I couldn’t tell if he was reading my mind or predicting my worries. “I’ll be good. I’ll feed the cat and water the plants and bring in the mail every night.”
