by AJ Merlin
“Well?” The kitsune prompted. “Are you going to say something worth hearing?”
Akiva didn’t answer immediately. He tilted his head first one way, then the other. “I think you should…refrain from taking Niall and his comrades up on their offer,” he said finally.
“You don’t like them.” It wasn’t an accusation when it was so easy to see.
Akiva turned his head to eye me petulantly. “I’m sure I like everyone who Cian keeps in his inner circle.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“If you keep your voice down, perhaps.”
That made me roll my eyes, but I went on. “Who came first? You and Indra, or the triplets and the Bokor?”
“They don’t like to be called the triplets,” Akiva informed me conversationally. “Ever since they changed their names, they demand to be called the Furies. It’s quite pretentious of them. I came first. Cian met up with Niall a few years after we started traveling together, and Niall seemed…” he pondered his words. “Jealous. When we saw him next, he had Uriel with him.”
“And then Indra came along?” I prompted.
“Yes. And then the Furies. Just as special as Indra, but in their own way.”
“Indra is…special?”
Akiva’s look was not quite so friendly this time.
“Okay, that’s not what I meant. You love him. I know he’s special to you. But I meant–“
“Cian stole him, didn’t he?” Merric asked, leaning forward with a gleam in his eyes. “I always wondered how he did it. He stole Indra.”
“Indra was not a thing to be stolen,” Akiva said reproachfully. “He chose Cian.”
I stayed quiet, hoping someone would take pity on me and explain.
“Some hellhounds are attached to places or things,” Merric said, finally explaining. “Those that are born and not created. It makes them more powerful than their independent counterparts, but it comes at a price.”
“It’s not my story to tell, nor is it yours to guess at, fox,” Akiva warned.
Merric shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t need to hear the smutty details, anyway.”
“So the triplets-the furies-are special as well. But not like Indra?” I confirmed.
“Not like Indra,” the lich assured me. “And now Niall sees that Cian has a summoner. Only, he can’t go to the store and pick one up, can he? He searched long and hard for his Bokor and his Furies.” Akiva met my eyes.
“You think he’d do something to me?”
Now he looked away. “I think he is one of Cian’s oldest and dearest friends,” he intoned. “But I also think that I do not quite trust him. I don’t like how the triplets treat Indra. Nor do I like the smell of Uriel’s magic.” He wrinkled his nose in distaste. “But I did not come here to gossip about my love’s friends.”
“You kinda did,” disagreed Merric. “You literally did, in fact.”
Akiva stood, eyes narrowing at Merric. “Be careful around them. That is all I ask, yes, Sahirataa?” There it was. The Arabic pet name I couldn’t understand but loved all the same.
“Can you write that down so Indra can translate it for me?” I asked lightly, trying to soothe the frown and the way he radiated discontent.
“My witch,” he answered. “That is what it means.” Without another word, he opened the door and left, not bothering to close it behind him.
“Well, that was unexpected,” Merric announced, getting to his feet as well. “Man, you just have so much to think about, don’t you?” He grinned and walked past me, shocking me with the sight of his two-tailed facade.
“Yeah,” I agreed, when both of them were gone. It was definitely a lot to think about.
Chapter 25
“What is your magic, exactly?” I shoved my hands in the pockets of my lightweight hoodie, eyeing Akiva from under the broad hood.
My sole companion was dressed similarly to me. We both wore all black, which was commonplace for me. I wasn’t sure for him. Wasn't there some kind of stereotype about the death-magic-bearer dressing like a goth kid in his skinny jeans and slim fit hoodie?
Well. To be fair. That same stereotype could be applied to me on any given day.
“Sahirataa, have you fallen and hit your head?” The lich asked kindly, sliding closer to me as we walked the sidewalk. He’d taken to calling me that, and I wondered how long it would last. I wondered how long we would last, and hoped the answer was ‘a very long time.’ “I am a lich.”
As per usual, I wasn’t sure where we were going. Only that I liked to start at one of the murderer’s crime scenes and work outward.
“No. I haven’t. I know you’re a lich. I know you play with dead things. I know you keep your soul in a jar, and I know you have a bird and a sword.”
“A phylactery. I do not keep it in a jar.” His tone was tinged with distaste. A phylactery could be many things. I was simply being obtuse for the fun of it.
“What do you keep it in, then?” In my continuous, deathly nightmare, courtesy of Collette, my mind had never been able to settle on a form for the container that kept his soul. “In my dream, it always shifted. You know, the one the witches put me in.” I’d told them about that well enough that he’d know what I was speaking of.
Akiva glanced up at the overcast sky as if he could peer straight through the clouds. Raindrops landed on his skin as I watched, announcing the continuation of the drizzle we’d dealt with all evening.
“You do know how I hate to tell you that you’re wrong and your information is outdated…” Akiva began with a look in my direction. When I didn’t correct his obvious lie, he went on. “I have not known a lich to keep their soul in a jar or a bottle or a sprite can in many years. We are not so stupid to pick something that gives us an obvious weakness.”
“Where do you hide it? Under your pillow, so only the tooth fairy knows where it is?” I teased gently.
“I am much more apt to answer your questions on my magic than your jabs at my soul.”
“What exactly is your magic? Past the bird, which I don’t think is a lich thing. I’ve met others with familiars. And the sword. Yuna does that too, though yours is a bit fancier.” Not that I’d tell her that.
“Don’t you remember that night at the bayou? I ripped a vampire’s soul right out of his body.”
“Like a vacuum,” I agreed, recalling the event in question.
He eyed me reproachfully. “I am not a vacuum.”
“Right…” I turned a corner, ducking around a group of tourists that didn’t notice my existence. They were too busy with their phones, taking pictures of some nearby magic show, to even realize they’d almost ran into me.
“I can animate the dead,” Akiva admitted. “Though I can’t sew them together like a necromancer. That is the main difference, I would say, between my kind and his. My powers are over the soul, more than the body. Necromancers swing around dead bodies like puppets on strings. Wait one second.” He wandered over to a food truck and came back promptly with freshly made donuts.
He offered one to me, pulling a smile from me. “You’re so sweet,” I teased, linking my arm with his. “Thank you.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “Don’t tell Indra, though. He might feel that I am encroaching on his territory. Haven’t you heard? He’s the nice one.”
“You’re nice too,” I disagreed, taking a bite of the warm pastry in my fingers. I was glad that both of the pastries had napkins wrapped around them so that I could save myself the embarrassment of licking my fingers clean.
“Perhaps a little. If I agree, will you read my fortune for me again?”
The request took me by surprise. He was so rarely interested in my fortune telling, after all. I had to wonder why he wanted me to do it again.
“You don’t have to agree or anything for that. You merely have to ask,” I replied. “And I’ll give you the friends-only discount. It’ll be fourteen ninety-five.”
“What about the lovers discount? I think I deserve som
ething a little better than that for how much you like my mouth on you while I hold you down.”
The woman passing us looked over in horror and hurried past.
Akiva looked back at her, a mischievous grin on his face.
“You did that on purpose.”
“So I did. Did I earn a better discount?”
I inhaled, trying to find anything in the air that didn’t belong. We were here for a reason, after all. But I still couldn’t help myself. “Your new price is sixty-three ninety-five.”
We walked in companionable silence for a few minutes. I scented the air often, my ears and tail on full display so that I could take advantage of partially-shifted senses.
“Why do you think a necromancer cares about the magic of voodoo?” Akiva inquired, tossing his napkins into a nearby trash can.
“I don’t know,” I replied, nose in the air. I glanced around at the crowds that were thicker than usual. This hadn’t been a great idea. Not here, where all the tourists stank up the street.
It was hard to smell anything other than bodies in need of a shower and food.
“But think about it. A necromancer is a type of witch. I don’t know that much about voodoo magic, but I would think it would take a lot of work to make it compatible with his brand of chaos.”
I was barely listening to him talk. Something made my nose itch, but I couldn’t place just what exactly had me wanting to sneeze.
“So why use their magic when he could just as easily kill witches and use theirs? Don’t you think it would be a lot fewer steps?” He waited politely for me to take notice and for the words to actually sink in.
He was right.
When I looked at Akiva, he had one brow raised, waiting for my answer.
“Why indeed?” I murmured. “I feel like this whole thing has to do with riddles. And I don’t exactly come from a background of riddles.” When I looked at him again, he shoved his hands in his pockets.
“Well, don’t look at me,” the lich shrugged. “I have known a sphinx rather intimately, but I never did share her kink for killing those who could not answer her riddles.”
“Wait–what? You slept with a sphinx?”
Akiva nodded happily. “Oh yes. It was before Cian, of course. Back then, my family would call on the sphinxes should we need guidance. Her name was Teleia. She had a very pretty tail. Sharp claws–“
“Stop,” I requested. “I don’t know what direction this is about to go down, whether it be questionable or homicidal, but I’m sure I don’t need to know.” I tugged him back into movement as he chuckled.
“You really don’t know any riddles?”
“Hmmm.” Akiva made a show of thinking about it. “I cannot talk, but I reply when spoken to. What am I?”
“What?” I looked at him, gesturing him down a less populated street. The air here had a strange, sharp quality to it that I couldn’t quite place.
I looked at him in askance as we walked, but he just watched me, expecting an answer.
He stopped walking, hands shoved in his pockets and an easy grin on his face.
I trailed to a stop as well, thinking. “You’re….” I really was quite bad at riddles.
Looking down, I frowned at my shoes. “Can you say it one more time for me?”
Cramming my eyes shut, I listened to him clearly enunciate his words. “I cannot talk, but I reply when spoken to. What am I?”
“An echo.”
My blood ran cold.
It wasn’t Akiva’s voice that answered.
Jerking my head up, I found that my shriek of warning was going to be too late. A new monster had wrapped long arms around Akiva and jerked him back into a dark alley.
It couldn’t have been natural; with my wolfish eyes, I should’ve been able to see him easily in the shadows.
But I couldn’t.
“Akiva!” I yelled, lunging forward with my heart in my throat.
Before I got to the darkness, a monster like the ones at the warehouse swelled out of the impenetrable shadows, pushing me back a couple of steps.
I looked around, ready to tell anyone near us to run, but there was no one there. Akiva and I were the only ones on the street, though I was sure there had been more people before.
I prepared myself, drawing up my magic to my hands and wondering if I could control The Moon long enough for it to do some good or if I should do something else entirely.
But the thing didn’t move.
It sank to its belly on the ground, staring up at me through sewn-shut lids.
It didn’t attack. It didn’t even growl.
“It’s not a very good riddle, as they go.” The shadows parted around the necromancer from before, dressed in the very same clothes and sporting smears of dried blood all along his shirt.
He looked even worse in the light than he had in the dark. The man gazed at me thoughtfully. “Oh! Here’s a better one. The more of this there is, the less you see. What is it?”
“Let Akiva go!” I snapped, fangs lengthening to sharp points as my anger flared.
“Hmm?” The necromancer looked over his shoulder. “Oh, your lich friend? I doubt it’ll take him long at all to get away from Molly.”
Something shrieked out a high, unpleasant giggle that made my ears ring.
“Did you miss my riddle? Perhaps you weren’t listening.” He rolled his eyes. “The more of this there is, the less you see. What is it?”
I had no idea. I had no fucking idea what the answer to his stupid riddle was. I threw my hands up in surrender and aggravation.
“I don’t know!” When I started to step around him, the thing on the ground rose up on its arms in a very blatant threat.
The necromancer sighed in utter disappointment. “It’s darkness,” he said gently, though still chastising. “Honestly, George, you’re not doing well at this. I’ve given you all the answers. Your fox even got one for you! But you still refuse to see. Even now.” He spread his arms wide. “When there’s nothing between us.”
“I don’t need to understand,” I breathed quietly, half-focusing on the sounds of Akiva’s struggle to make sure he was still struggling. “You’re a killer. You’re a monster, and that’s all I need to know.”
He looked at the creature beside him. It slowly raised its head, its four arms dragging on the pavement.
Just looking at its dead, bLoated flesh in the daylight made me want to puke.
“Then we’ll kill again.” His voice was again not his own. My eyes snapped back to him, and I found that his eyes were completely white, with no sign of the pupil in them at all.
“We thought you might be something,” the echoing voice went on. “All of those words. Everyone’s attention on you…” He shook his head from side to side very slowly. “And Georgette Levasseur is just a blind, helpless child.”
“I am not a child! And I am not helpless!” His head dropped forward as if a string had been cut. When he looked up again, his eyes were back to normal. “You are a monster, and I will stop you,” I promised. “Now, let my friend go.”
The necromancer stared at me for too many precious seconds. He looked first to his left, then bit his lip and grinned suddenly. “Take him,” he invited, and stepped back into the shadows.
I wasted no time in following him, witch light glowing in my hand as I stepped into the alley that lay in a heavy black fog.
“Akiva!” I called. He couldn’t be far. Only a few steps from me.
Something moved beside me, surging past my elbow with a low growl. I whirled, catching the tail end of it in my hand.
Whatever it was grabbed back, claws sinking into my hand and causing me to cry out.
I refused to let go. I let more of my shift slip through, my fingers curling into claw-tipped digits that sank into the thing’s limb.
I couldn’t see it, but I could hurt it.
Sure enough, it squealed when I put my other set of claws into it and yanked. The creature fell towards me in the darkness, a larger s
hadow getting closer and closer until I could plunge my claws into it again.
Blood showered my front, spraying onto my face and nearly blinding me. While I was distracted by losing the little bit of vision I had, the monster tore free with a cry.
Something moved again. My heart pounded, hand raised to catch it again.
This time long fingers caught my wrist.
The shadows were fading, and Akiva stood in front of me with blood on his own clothes, and his hoodie ripped nearly in half.
Behind him, the creature I assumed to be ‘Molly’ lay in a pile of blood and worse with Horus ripping daintily at her corpse.
“He’s gone,” the lich murmured, looking up at the high walls around us. “And he took the other one with him.”
“How did he do that?” I demanded. “That darkness, I mean. And the way he was just here all of a sudden.”
“I don’t know,” Akiva murmured. “It didn’t seem like his magic, did it? Perhaps he’s getting more in tune with what he stole.” He let go of my wrist. “Did he try to hurt you?” Belatedly Akiva looked me over, reaching up to wipe the blood away from my eyes.
“No,” I admitted, just as confused as he was. “He seemed disappointed that I couldn’t figure something out. And he wouldn’t let me go to you…” I shifted, then shivered in the cool wind that suddenly blew down the alley. “But he never really tried to hurt me.”
Even the thing in the shadows had seemed half-hearted.
“I know you don’t want to hear it, but I think you should take the whole gang with you when you go looking for him,” the lich admitted with a sigh. “This….thing is strong. Even I can admit that much. Either way, promise me you will not under any circumstances go looking for him on your own.” His green-gold eyes landed squarely on mine.
I blinked. “I already promised Cian.” He’d been there for that whole conversation. Or had he forgotten so quickly?
“Yes, but we all promise Cian things we all intend on tossing out later. I am not Cian. I will have no problem wrapping you in ropes and keeping you safe until I know you will not stick your muzzle into trouble.” His eyes narrowed. “Promise you will not go out alone.”
