"There are some ... bad people around here," she replied with a sour expression. "They just showed up a few weeks ago out of nowhere. They'd apparently been a thing for a while, but I'd never seen them in public, I guess."
"Yeah, we had to deal with the Watchers back in Anster, too," Edie said, assuming that was what Yuval meant.
But their hostess shook her head. "No, not Watchers. I saw stuff on Facebook about those, and I heard there were sightings here—but they're different. As far as I know, these guys are human. They call themselves the Blood Eagles."
"Blood Eagles…” Edie looked to the others. “Where have I heard that before?"
Satara sighed, resting her chin on her knees. "A blood eagle was supposedly a form of torture, or execution, used by the Vikings. It involves severing someone's ribs from their spine and ripping them out through their back. Splaying them like bloodied wings. Some people claim it was a ritual sacrifice to Odin."
"It's a myth," Marius added. "A Christian mistranslation of kennings for the dead on battlefields, picked apart by carrion birds. That hasn't stopped some from adopting the idea, however."
Yuval crossed her arms, looking a little paler for the graphic description. "That makes sense. It definitely sounds like something they would romanticize."
"Who are they?" Klein asked, their tone serious for once.
"They're some kind of white supremacist group, or alt-right, or whatever they're calling it these days. There have been a few incidents. Protests and counterprotests, and some of it gets out of hand. I just wanted you guys to be aware, so you can avoid them."
Edie wasn’t surprised. It seemed like every city had the same problems lately. Someone, somewhere was always rioting or protesting something—and in many cases, if her punk soul had actually been free to live life anymore, she'd have been right there along with them. But the Blood Eagles and their ilk weren't oppressed people demanding rights.
"Thanks for the heads-up," she said with a nod. Even if the Blood Eagles were just a group of humans, it was good to know they were a threat.
Still, it seemed weird that a group with a pseudo-Viking name would pop up in New York around the same time the Gloaming did. There was a chance it was a coincidence, of course. Lots of hate groups had latched on to Norse imagery without the Gloaming's interference before. But Edie's gut told her there was a connection.
Yuval seemed eager to change the subject. As she finished off the last of her juice, she asked, "Do you guys know how long you're staying here?"
"Can't be too sure," said Cal, who was sitting with his ankle resting on his knee, now looking a bit more comfortable. "A week? Whatever it ends up being, we'll pay you. Name a price and it's yours."
She shook her head. “No, I couldn’t take anything. This is Tilda’s place, and you’re her friends—”
"Please," Klein groaned, "let them pay you!"
“Tilda already—”
"Having us here is dangerous," Satara reminded her gently.
“Yeah. Think of it as … insurance, in case shit goes south.” Cal sat forward, and Edie nodded in agreement. "We've got whatever you need. In cash."
Yuval's eyes flew wide. "Please, it’s not necessary. And that much money in cash, I couldn’t—”
"It's fine!"
"It's really not a big deal."
"What you got against free money?"
"Let the people pay you, I'm begging!"
The chorus of voices made her cringe and laugh a bit, waving her hands. "Okay, okay! We’ll think of it as a deposit—and if nothing happens, I’m giving it back." After a moment, she settled down again, but Edie could see the wheels in her head turning. "I'm going to have to make you guys more food. Do you like mousse? I'm weirdly great at making mousse."
Cal pulled a face. "The hairspray or the animal?"
Chapter Five
Yuval and Klein left within a couple hours, leaving the group with four bedrooms and only three people who needed to sleep. All the rooms seemed to be the same size, albeit with varying bathroom dimensions, so none of them ended up choosing the master. Cal, with an aversion to rest as always, was just leaving to scope out the neighborhood when the others began getting ready for bed.
When Edie walked into her chosen room, which was decorated in sandy tans and subtle purples, she noted something she had overlooked when she’d dropped her bag off. On the bed, soft towels, robes, and washcloths were neatly rolled up next to some kind of gift basket. A little card was attached to the basket handle.
Enjoy your stay! Help yourself to any of these treats and feel free to take them home. Please text me personally—or run over to my place to see me!—if there's anything I can add to make your stay better.
—Yuval.
Edie sorted through the soaps and lotions, candy, and other amenities curiously. The places she usually stayed, the most they ever left was clean linens and a mint on your pillow.
She didn’t bother to unpack her bag yet. Exhaustion was starting to shut her down, and she just wanted to enjoy a few hours of solitude before whatever lay ahead of them tomorrow. She made her way to the bathroom, hoping to freshen up after the long drive. It was spotless, nice-smelling, and painted a calming lavender.
Shutting and locking the door released tension she hadn’t even known she was holding. Finally, she was alone.
She shed her clothes before taking her hair down. The sight of herself in the mirror made her cringe. She was waxy and looked half-dead from exhaustion, and there was a reason she usually kept her hair up anyway—long, loose hair didn’t suit her at all. With a sigh, she opened the cabinet mirror so she couldn’t see herself anymore and started the shower.
A full half hour later, she emerged, with only enough energy to struggle into a T-shirt and pajama bottoms before collapsing into the big, soft bed.
Branches scraped Edie’s skin as she moved through the thick wood, their fingers leaving tiny razor-thin cuts that stung when the eerily uncold snow touched them. It took her a moment to realize what was happening, considering this dream usually began with her waking in the small white clearing.
She got the strange sense that the familiar sequence of events had already started without her—that the wolf had already howled, that the forest was already awake and aware of her presence. Sure enough, it was only a few moments before the river began to murmur, and a moment later, the crow appeared, soaring past her head to wait for her in the trees beyond.
She was going father than usual again. The last time her dream had proceeded like this, she had actually seen the wolf. She had been able to call her powers up for the first time and use them to defend herself, and it had carried into the waking world. With that in mind, she now followed the crow eagerly, wondering what she might learn this time around.
But her eagerness was rewarded only with a strong sense of dread that built and built the closer she came to the river. By the time she breached the treeline, every hair was standing on end, her stomach doing nervous flips. Was she sensing the wolf about to pounce from the bushes?
But it never appeared, and the feeling intensified the longer she stood there. As she looked forward, she couldn’t help but think that whatever was causing this unrest was somewhere in front of her.
And yet, everything looked the same. The footbridge was the same as last time, with the crow resting on the pilaster, watching her just as it had before.
None of her logical observation made any difference, of course; the dread persisted, and Edie was compelled to approach the river. Despite her mind begging her to turn around and go back the way she’d come, her body seemed intent on seeing the dream through.
Two steps closer. Three. As she crept up to the riverbank, the water finally came into her line of sight.
And it wasn’t water.
A slow-moving, almost viscous substance flowed where dark water should have been, cloudy with cobwebby forms pulled and stretched through it. Horrified, Edie peered closer, able to make out bodies and faces—some
with eyes closed as if asleep; some with mouths open in distant screams, fingers clawing upward, searching in vain for a way to the surface. The loud whispering around her, which she usually interpreted as the rushing of water, had never sounded as much like human voices as it did now.
The sight wasn’t anywhere near the worst thing she’d seen, and yet it filled her with immense terror. She balked inwardly, but her body didn’t move an inch, her toes touching the very edge of the bank. Only in a nightmare would she be transfixed like this. She could do nothing except look into the river of trapped souls as their prayers and pleas and screams enveloped her.
Next to her, the crow cawed. Edie managed to tear her eyes away from the river's soft glow to look up at it, frowning. It felt almost as though the bird had said something she hadn't quite understood. "What?" she uttered, turning slightly with the intent to approach its perch on the bridge.
Suddenly, cold licked her ankle, and she lost her balance, almost going down onto one knee in the snow.
It took her a moment to realize what had happened. Panic paralyzed her briefly, and then she began kicking her leg, trying to free herself of whatever was holding on—clutching her.
When she looked back, she screamed. The sound cut through the snowy forest.
A pale purplish face and a skeletal upper body scrambled behind Edie, trying to use its grip on her to pull itself up the steep riverbank. She kicked and kicked, but the thing's grip was unnaturally steady, like it had its clutches around something more than her body.
She bent at the middle and lashed out, clawing and pulling at the ice-cold hand as whispers and the sounds of swarming crows clouded her mind. Black wings obscured all vision, and—
Not black wings. It was darkness, and there was silence save for her thrashing and whimpers.
Darkness. Her first thought was that she must still be in Indriði’s dungeon. Not another dungeon dream...
Then … sirens. Traffic. Somewhere close by, there was a street, lots of city noise. Lucidity rushed back in as her hand flew to her throat. Her heart was thundering as if she'd just sprinted a mile, and her ears rang with her own shrieks. Had she screamed out loud?
She sat up for a moment, trying to catch her breath. That damn nightmare. She almost missed when it had been predictable, as unsettling as reoccurring nightmares were. What, she didn't get traumatized and attacked by bad guys enough when she was awake?
It took a few moments for her heart rate to settle, and she resolved to get up and go to the bathroom. She filled a tiny glass with water from the tap and drank it like she'd been trekking through the desert for a day, then splashed water on her face and patted it dry. With a deep breath, she braved a glance at her half-dead appearance in the mirror again.
As she did, something gave her pause. That strange electric feeling she'd felt in the parking garage suddenly surged, and she swore that she saw her dark gray irises pulse a faint blue—the color Satara said they turned when she commanded large amounts of death magic.
She frowned and leaned closer to the mirror, watching closely ... but the moment seemed to have passed. Leaning back, she took one last look at herself before exiting the bathroom—
—and slamming right into someone’s chest.
The past few weeks had been harder for Marius than any other time in his life. There was no path for him from here that didn't end in alienation and strife, and though he’d never admit it out loud, that fact was slowly and steadily breaking him down.
The Aurora, the only home and family he had ever known, had left him in the dust. Rejected him. They had dismissed his fears. They had tried to cover up their own crimes. They had threatened the truth with punishment.
Out of fear for his own life, he'd had to run from them, and running from the Aurora made you a fugitive forever.
It was all because of what had happened with the Radiant—or former Radiant, now. Going from trusting his father implicitly, to thinking he was an evil traitor, to being unsure of the truth at all had been … difficult, putting it lightly. What was worse, the truth that was beginning to reveal itself now told a story that implicated Marius, too. According to Tara, the last surviving witness of his father's deal with Indriði, Radiant Eirik had only agreed to the Norn's terms when she'd threatened to tell Marius's "secret."
What that secret was, Marius still had no idea. He'd never kept a secret worth breaking a holy oath.
And it haunted him. He had been ready to kill his father when he and the Reach had infiltrated the Temple of the Rising Divine. Now, Marius couldn't find it in his heart to hate him. He was hurt and confused, but he couldn't hate him.
In the end, the Aurora had turned out to be no more noble. In the end, it seemed this had all been Eirik's misguided attempt to protect his only son. And now he was gone. Gods only knew where.
Had all this betrayal been Marius's fault, at its core?
He had been chewing on the question for weeks, and now that they were in Radiant Oddfreyr's territory, it wouldn't leave him in peace. Even the pleasant company and the big comfy bed he had claimed weren't enough to calm him. As he tried to sleep, he kept flipping over and looking out the window, watching the snow fall and build up.
This snow. Another hellerune. A secret branch of the Reach. Not one but two dangerous groups roaming the city. Even beyond the scope of his own personal dilemma, there was too much to think about.
So he knew he wasn't dreaming when a yelp from the next room cut the frustrated silence, causing him to jump to his feet. He recognized the voice as Edie’s.
For a split second, his mind raced, wondering if someone had snuck in and attacked her—but he had been living with her and the others for a couple weeks, now, and had quickly learned that night terrors were common among the guests in Matilda's home.
Marius settled on the edge of his bed, conflicted. Should he go to her? Was that too much? She had been kind to him so far, but kind didn’t mean I want you to enter my bedroom at night.
Then again, what if there was a chance she was truly in trouble? If something had come through the window in the night and incapacitated her, she would need help even if she couldn’t shout for it. Especially if she couldn’t shout for it.
Best to be safe. For the sake of the group, if nothing else.
He quickly pulled a shirt on and stepped into the hall, walking the ten feet that separated his and Edie’s rooms before knocking on her door. There was no response. After a handful more seconds and another unanswered knock, Marius took a deep breath, braced himself, and entered.
The room was empty, and a sense of dread turned his stomach until he noticed a light shining through the crack under the bathroom door. He exhaled in relief and took a few steps closer, approaching to knock there as well.
Just as he was reaching out, however, the door opened, and a shorter figure collided with him.
It was Edie, as became apparent when she stepped back with a surprised gasp. Marius froze, taking her in.
He had only seen her in her nightclothes a couple times now, and it was still shocking every time. He was used to taking cues from appearance—who was important, who was not to be trifled with—and however compassionate she had turned out to be, her usual black, spiky attire suggested the opposite. It was almost as if, like him, she wore armor. To see her unmakeupped and dressed plainly was still jarring for him.
And, against his better judgment … exciting. She was dressed as modestly as one could ever imagine, in a T-shirt and flannel pants, but it wasn’t the amount of skin shown that transfixed Marius.
“Jesus!” she breathed, putting a hand to her chest. “You scared me.”
He refocused quickly. “My apologies. You were, um, screaming.”
She blinked, and he could have sworn he saw a shimmer of magic trace a circle around her dilated pupils. “Oh. Sorry.”
“I wanted to make sure you weren’t being attacked,” he added in haste.
“I’m okay. I just had—” She paused in a way that concer
ned Marius, but simply shook her head, sitting on the edge of her bed. “I just had a nightmare. Pretty standard these days.”
Marius nodded, standing stiffly for a moment. Did she want to be left alone? Should he go? He was about to take his leave when she bent herself in half and buried her face in her hands, groaning.
His shoulders sank. No, he couldn’t just leave her like this. After another pause, he sat down next to her. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“I don’t know.” She sat up again and looked ahead blearily. “I don’t think I can go back to sleep.”
Marius glanced out the window. The orange haze of light pollution had shifted. It was probably around an hour to sunrise. “We could always go into one of the common areas. There’s no point in sitting in the dark for hours.”
Edie quirked a brow at him but nodded. “Yeah … that sounds good.”
She grabbed the throw blanket from the end of her bed and wrapped it tightly around her shoulders as they made their way out into the living room. Marius flicked on a lamp, and they sat on opposite ends of the couch, her curling up and him resting his head sleepily back against the cushions.
After a minute or so of silence, he noticed her smiling at him. His brows drew together. “What?”
“It’s, uh … I dunno. Nice to see your hair down and curly.” She looked uncertain, like she wasn’t sure if she should be saying it. “It’s almost always slicked within an inch of its life.”
“I just don’t like it in my face,” he mumbled.
“I feel that.” She reached back and patted her bun. Her hair wasn’t quite long enough for it to be a proper messy bun, so the ends just stuck up in the back like spikes. It reminded him of a blackbird’s plumage. A second later, something seemed to dawn on her, and she looked around the room with concern. “Cal’s not back yet?”
“Maybe he’s in the master bedroom?”
“Nah. He probably won’t touch it. He’s … weird about hospitality.”
Unholy Spirit (The Necromancer's Daughter Book 3) Page 5
