“Monsters?” Jael scoffed.
Her playful demeanor vanished. “They’re all real.”
FOUR YEARS LATER
Turning from the view of the snow-capped peaks out the window, Jael faced The Old Man of the Mountain. “They will never stop coming.”
A blazing fire sent dark shadows dancing and heated the small room at the top of the red castle, built of sweeping curved architecture on a promontory. The Old Man of the Mountain, who didn’t look the part with his smooth burnished golden skin, close-cropped black hair and trimmed beard, sat in his favorite armchair surrounded by thick pillows as he sipped apple tea. “Of course they will always come. It is not in man’s nature to be content with what he has.”
If he had a name other than Old Man of the Mountain, Jael hadn’t learned it in the years he’d been here. Colorful geometrically patterned rugs silenced Jael’s boots as he crossed the stone floor. “You trained me as an assassin, not a border guard.”
The Old Man set his teacup on a low table in front of the fireplace. “I trained you to kill. You turned yourself into an assassin.”
“These men I kill are nothing but puppets!” Jael raged and paced back to the window. Four years since his wife and daughter were murdered, and he was no closer to finding the ones responsible. “There’s a much more efficient way to get rid of them. Free me from your service. I can start at the top and take the snake’s head.”
The Old Man sipped his tea. “Legend says Ninurta killed a snake once, Bashmu, a great horned snake with wings.”
Jael sighed. When the Old Man started a story, nothing stopped him from finishing it. “And?”
“And his next battle was with Musmhhu, a horned serpent with seven heads.” He shifted uncomfortably.
Biting back words of frustration, he helped the Old Man move his cushions around until he was comfortable.
“Thank you, my boy. It is harder and harder to make this old body of mine content.”
Jael snorted. The Old Man acted infirm, playing it up as a weakness. Jael knew better. “I know you too well. You are trying to teach me patience. I have learned many things from you, but even you have not managed to teach me to be patient.”
The Old Man’s black eyes sparkled. “And yet here you are, still waiting for the end of my story.”
Jael held up his hands. “Fine. I’m still here. Finish your story.”
“Ninurta slew that monster, and his next foe was Usumgallu, a horned, four-legged winged dragon-demon created by Tiamat herself.”
“What are you saying?” Jael sighed. “I should let a monster live because the one that replaces it could be worse?”
“I am saying there will always be a monster. Maybe it will be worse, maybe it won’t, but there will always be another. Are you prepared to fight a war you can always win but never end?”
“If I can’t kill all of them, I will kill them as long as I can, and my war will end with my death.”
“If monsters are what you want to hunt, the time has come for you to seek other tutelage.”
His thoughts flashed to that strange woman who had given him the medallions and scimitars he still wore. They had become his trademark, like she said.
As if he conjured her, she stepped out of a shadow. Jael reached for his swords, but she was already across the room, sitting across from the Old Man and helping herself to apple tea.
She sipped, then put the cup down with a clatter. “Hot.” Zax waved a hand in front of her mouth and glared at the Old Man. “Your tea is always too hot, and you never have cake.”
He laughed. “You never let me know when to expect you. And somehow, I don’t think the temperature of my tea is going to be your downfall.”
Jael slid his swords back into their sheaths on his back.
“I like what you’ve done with the blades.” Zax wore a single sword and a mace on her back this time.
Rather than wear the medallions around his neck, a blacksmith at the fortress had worked them into the hilts of Jael’s swords. They were safer there. The swords were his constant companions and never far from him.
Zax eyed her teacup, then stood without touching it again. “Come on. I heard you were interested in killing monsters.” She extended a hand to Jael as she walked into a shadow, leaving only her arm in the room.
Her voice floated back to them. “The time has come to talk of many things — Of souls and swords and shadow worlds, of vampires and kings. And why the tea is always boiling hot, and whether djinn can sing.”
Jael remained where he was. “I still don’t understand you.”
She sighed. “I still get that a lot.” The disembodied hand flapped at him. “Or you can try to figure it all out yourself.”
He slid his fingers into hers and walked into a new, darker world.
AN AGONIZED SCREAM brought Jael back to the present. Even thirty-five hundred years later, the Old Man of the Mountain was still winning arguments. If Jael killed this snake, another would take his place.
The mage quivered, his body covered in cuts that bled in a rainbow of colors. But none of it was blood.
Silver magic flowed, circled the medallions set into the hilts of his swords, and flew out the door. Jael smirked. Freed strygoi magic was never unsure of where it wanted to go. With two of the strongest strygoi upstairs, the magic would happily add to their power. Magics of other colors swirled around his blades, as if confused and seeking direction.
The mage’s skin hadn’t been broken, just the spells he carried bound to his soul, and the stolen magic freed. Breaking those spells hurt worse than anything Jael could do to the man physically.
“That last spell must have been important. What did it do?” Jael squinted at the mage. “Oh, that was an important one. You’ll be looking your age soon. Feeling it, too, if that spell worked liked I think it did.” He backed away. “But you won’t die, will you? That will be a different spell, powered with lives and hidden deep.”
“You want this to end for today, mage, tell me something I can use. How do your minions find witches? How many of you are there in Port Storm?”
“Blood,” the mage whispered, his voice hoarse from screams Jael hadn’t heard. “We test their blood at the —” He screamed as the spell preventing him from speaking of other mages kicked in.
“Do you know of other cities where the same thing is happening? When and where is the next auction?” Jael raised his swords over the mage’s stomach and right leg.
“No!” the mage shrieked. “Please, no more.” In the few moments since Jael broke the spell, the mage’s hair had thinned. Faint wrinkles appeared around his eyes and mouth, and his muscular stature seemed to shrink in on itself a bit. “What day is it?”
“It’s December 10th.”
“There’s an auction in two days in Ashana.” The mage tried a smirk, but it looked more like a grimace of pain. “But you’ll never get in, vampire. It takes place during the day.”
“What is going to be auctioned? More witches?”
The mage sagged in his chains. His body weakening by the second. “No. This one is for books, relics, and spells.”
There were still things to learn, but breaking the spell that healed damage had cost the mage. Jael didn’t want him to die of a heart attack. That would still free his magic to seek an acolyte and the mage would be reborn in a new body.
Jael held both swords in one hand, detached the chain from the wall and floor, and shoved it into the whimpering mage’s arms. He left the dungeon, locking the door behind him.
A sword in each hand again, he climbed the stairs as the newly freed magics twirled around the medallions. The magics would stay with the swords until they could get outside. Sometimes they stayed longer. He couldn’t see them unless he held his swords in his hands, though, and sometimes they seemed to need some encouragement to go free after being captured for so long.
“I can’t take you outside until it gets dark,” he said to the magic. He was never sure how much of the witch
es remained in the magic he freed, but magic was part of someone’s soul. “Come on, we’ll look for Ciaran. He can let all of you outside.”
The living space was oddly deserted. Vampires tended to be nocturnal since that’s when they could go outside and not die, but they weren’t biologically required to sleep during the day. Someone should be around. Jael headed for the kitchen, sure he would find Ciaran there. The man was forever eating sandwiches. Empty bread wrappers, jars of peanut butter, and discarded sandwich meat packages littered the countertops. But Ciaran wasn’t here.
“Ciaran?” Jael called, as he went out into the living room. “Anybody?”
Melchior’s heavy footsteps thudded down the stairs.
“Where is everyone?” Jael asked the pale giant. “I need to talk to Stryx.”
“Ciaran went to search for Mjesec, and that lunatic strygoi has Stryx on the roof.”
“Fuck!” Jael ran for the stairs. The magics swirled around his swords in confused agitation. He couldn’t save Riordan after he’d vowed to protect him, and now he had lost one of Riordan’s sons. Guilt swamped him. Ember and Stryx had their differences, but he hadn’t thought she would torture or kill him. Had he misread her so badly? They seemed to have worked things out at the gallery last night. Selene would be devastated he’d failed her again.
“We’re going to need blood, Call —” He stopped as Zeke, Karov and Alaric came down the stairs, disheveled as though they’d been in a fight, but laughing. “What the fuck?”
Zeke grinned as Alaric scowled and slapped cash into his palm. “Don’t worry about Stryx. He might be dead to the world when she’s done with him, but I think he’s going to like everything she does to him.”
Jael glared at Melchior. “You said he was on the roof!”
“He is.” Melchior held his hands up. “That crazy witch of his did something to him and he walked into the sun.”
“But —”
“It didn’t burn him.” Zeke clapped a hand on Jael’s shoulder. “You didn’t fail him. He’s exactly where he wants to be. Ember called him to her. She won’t let anything happen to him.”
Alaric laughed. “Even if you could go after him, he would kick your ass for interrupting them. Assassin or not.”
Jael relaxed and sheathed his swords, the multi-colored swirls disappearing from sight. “So Ciaran isn’t the only one of us who can go in the sun anymore?”
Karov shook his head. “If this isn’t a onetime thing, Stryx can be in the sun, too. Why?”
“The mage said there’s an auction in Ashana soon. During the day.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
VIKTORIA
“SHALL I GIVE YOU EMBER’S check, too?” Michel batted his eyelashes at Viktoria. “Please, you simply must take it. I have called her, mais alors, sa passion n’est pas pour moi. She has eyes seulement for her bête noire!” He batted his eyelashes even faster and fluttered one hand to fan himself. “Ooh la la, if I had such a beast I would only have eyes for him, aussi!”
Viktoria smiled. “Of course, darling. I’ll see she gets it.”
“Bien!” Michel pirouetted on his toes and sashayed into his office.
“Bête noire?” Dream asked.
Viktoria nodded. “I met Ember’s vampire at the showing we had here last night. He’s the scowly, growly type.”
“Your vampire is probably the same way. They all are. I like this human though. He seems fun.” Memory tugged the short skirt of her silver dress down. “Do all your clothes have to be so tight and short?”
“Lurky is not my vampire. I just borrowed him for a little while.” Viktoria smirked. “And blame Weaver. She makes my clothing. You should have brought clothes with you if you didn’t want to wear mine.”
Memory scoffed. “Yeah, borrowed him for a little while. When has that ever worked with one of those? I can’t remember a single time.”
“I didn’t let him bite me.”
Dream gasped. “Fibber! I saw what he did after —”
“That doesn’t count!” Viktoria whirled and pointed a finger in Dream’s grinning face. “You shouldn’t be spying on dreams I didn’t finish.”
“I wouldn’t be able to see it if it wasn’t what you dreamed of, Shadow.” Dream’s voice softened as she tangled her fingers with Viktoria’s, clasping their hands together and settling them over her heart. “It’s the impossible thing we all want. Dreams are the only place we can have it.”
Michel burst from his office, pulling a large rolling suitcase behind him. He pranced to Viktoria, holding out two checks and a scrawled note on top of a large pink and gold pastry box with purple letters. “You forgot these morsels for Musette, non? She will never forgive us if they languish. There will be le meurtre!” He drew a finger across his throat and shuddered.
Viktoria squinted, trying to read the message. As fastidious as Michel was about his appearance and the running of his gallery, he had atrocious handwriting. “What’s this?”
“A man comes to my gallery so early in this morning! He has a commission spéciale pour vous! He did not know how to get in touch with you. I took his name and number in case you want to speak with him. That one was no ooh la la bête noire, but he was inquietant. Be cautious ma petite, if you see him. That one to my mind brings araignées.”
Michel shuddered, led the way to the door and opened it, letting them file past. He locked the door and beamed as a taxi pulled to a stop in front of the gallery. “Parfait! D’accord! I go to les boissons très grand et speedos minuscule, alors, à bientôt!”
He kissed each of the women on both cheeks and swirled into the cab.
“He is adorable,” Dream said, as Michel’s taxi pulled away. “Do you have more humans like him?”
“I don’t have any humans, but even if I did, there’s only one like Michel.” They climbed into Viktoria’s Range Rover convertible.
Dream slid sunglasses onto her nose and settled into her seat. “What are we going to do now? See your friends?”
Viktoria nodded. “Let me call Ember and see if I can get her away from that ooh la la bête noire of hers.”
“Hello, Viktoria.” Ember sounded relaxed and content through the car’s speakers, not at all like she’d seemed last night.
“How are you, Ember? How is Musette?”
Ember sighed. “I’m... I’m fine. Musette... her condition hasn’t changed.”
“Does her condition have to do with the men who came to the show last night with Stryx?”
“What? No. Of course not.” Ember hesitated. “Why would you think that?”
Viktoria debated how much to admit she knew. She wanted to find out more about that spark of magic that had passed between her and Ember. And if Musette’s condition had something to do with magic, her mother might know what to do. If the situation came to that, Viktoria would have to think carefully about how to phrase that request.
“I know they were all vampires, Ember.”
Ember gasped. “You... you know about them? How? Are you...”
“No, I’m not a vampire, but what I know might surprise you. We didn’t get to talk much at the show, and Michel gave me your check. He’s hurt you’re ignoring him in favor of your new bête noire, by the way.”
“My what? You know I don’t speak Michel as well as you. And I’m not ignoring him. He called me six times in five minutes and didn’t leave a message.”
“Your black beast.”
Ember chuckled. “I’m not telling Stryx Michel calls him that.”
“I already heard.” A man’s low voice intruded on their conversation.
“Damn vampire hearing,” Ember whispered into the phone.
“I also heard that.”
Viktoria broke in. “Can we meet? Without Mr. Scowly-Growly?”
“No,” Stryx snapped.
“Hold on a moment.” Ember must have pressed the phone to her chest, as not all the words came through.
“— dare you forbid —”
“— touch th
em when they’re spread —”
Viktoria’s eyebrows rose, and Dream clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle her giggles.
“— put my sword in your —”
Memory snorted. “She’s got a sword?”
“She didn’t use to,” Viktoria replied.
“— but the sun —”
“— doesn’t matter!”
“— my Dragă —”
The tone and innuendo in Stryx’s voice made Viktoria want shift in her seat and cover her sisters’ not-so-innocent ears, as if with those two words alone they were going to be thoroughly corrupted by eavesdropping on something a lot more intimate than an argument about Ember meeting her friend.
Although she didn’t know what Dragă meant, Viktoria imagined Lurky’s deep voice saying those words to her in that tone as he prowled up her body and resisted the urge to turn on the air conditioner.
Vampires bad. So very, very bad.
But she wasn’t sure anymore if bad was bad or not.
Ember came back. “Can you come to me now? I’m with Musette, but I have to go somewhere later this afternoon.”
Viktoria cleared her throat. “Perfect. Two of my sisters are with me. They know things too and might be able to help Musette. Tell us where to meet you.”
VIKTORIA FOLLOWED EMBER’S instructions north and west out of the city until they arrived at a black gate three stories high. An equally high wall ran in both directions away from the entrance as far as she could see.
No intercoms or call boxes. “I need my phone, Memory.”
Memory extended it from the backseat. “Can I have one? These didn’t exist last time we got to leave Pohjola. Did you know about the internet? It’s all in here! I don’t think it’s really accurate though. A lot of this is not the way I remember things happening.” She frowned and nudged Dream. “Hey, wake up! You’re going to miss everything again.”
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