I walked until the pueblo — and the village beyond — were still in sight but far enough away to feel remote. I found a bare patch of dusty ground and sat cross-legged, gazing into the eastern sky as I awaited the sun.
I’d spent most of my life only miles from the Rim. Growing up on the Res, a girl learned early to block out the darkness that crept in from that empty place. It’d been a while since I’d sat here and felt that niggling pressure. Could have been my imagination, but it seemed stronger now. More potent. I saw Senka’s grave in my mind, and I shuddered.
I closed my eyes, listening to the waking birds and bugs of the desert. I gathered my energy: the ball of power and magick within me that made me fae, that could manipulate reality and emotions. Piece by piece, I bricked up the walls that kept the darkness out. I’d started doing it as a girl, and I kept a semi-barrier between me and the darkness erected every day, especially when tracking a mark in the Rim. But I hadn’t built the big wall in a while. I hadn’t needed to while I lived so close to Senka.
Power buzzed through me. I could no longer sense the darkness, and it could no longer sense me.
I opened my eyes to watch the sun rise.
My mother’s absolution that Rice had died because of the Insurgentia echoed through me. He’d taken up with them six months ago after the first riot. A human kid, no more than a teenager, threw a Molotov Cocktail through the plate glass window of a fae man’s business. The place burned to the ground. The fae man was a member of Senka’s High Council.
The gauntlet had been thrown.
The Insurgentia didn’t believe the council had remained as balanced as Rasha had intended when she put the Hollows into motion a hundred years ago. They believed the council was corrupt and biased, giving preference to the fae as “higher beings.”
Rice believed in their mission: to bring peace and balance back to the Hollow. He’d expressed concerns to me about the execution of their mission, but he’d thrown himself into it like he was chasing religion.
I didn’t think the fae were better than the humans; not by a long shot. I blamed my own race for the current world we lived in. Quite frankly, I didn’t give a fuck whether you were human or fae, as long as you weren’t shadow touched. Once Acura’s residual darkness had infiltrated you, human or fae, you were the enemy.
I loved my brother’s passion, though. Not just for the Insurgentia. Rice never lived anything halfway. If he threw his lot in with something, he did it at one-hundred-and-ten percent. Training at the SEB had taught me doing something so blindly and completely could be a horrible weakness. Maybe that was why my brother was dead now.
But with Rice... I guess I never saw it as weakness in him. I saw it as a strength, one to be admired. My passion extended to capturing other people to be sentenced to death. What did that say about me?
I closed my eyes on my tears. I didn’t want to cry again. To lose control, as I had done in my mother’s arms last night.
My grief is the desert, endless and interminable.
I needed to stay strong and steady. I had work to do.
I am lost and alone.
I stayed there, stuck in limbo between tears and my need for strength, as the sun’s rays began to spread over the Res.
Mama awoke as I was sneaking out the door to leave.
“Where are you going, shich'é'é?” she asked quietly, knotting the tie of her yellow bathrobe. The color looked stunning on her—bringing out the warm tone of her brown skin. “You have just arrived. We have much to plan for your brother’s funeral.”
I swallowed hard at those words. An ache opened inside me where my brother’s heart had once beat alongside mine.
“I won’t be gone long. I have to go to work.” It was a half-truth. I did have to go to work and check in with Lila, plus I needed to start tracking down my next mark.
But I also had to pay a visit to the Insurgentia.
“You will return, shich'é'é?” Mama’s question was straightforward, but the look in her eyes was not. The look in her eyes told me she expected me to vanish, to avoid my responsibilities to the tribe as I had done too many times in the past.
I backtracked and hugged her, an internal plea passing between us: Please trust me, Shimá.
Her tight embrace returned her own plea: Please don’t let me down, shich'é'é.
“I’ll be back,” I promised.
The desert sun had grown hot in the time it took me to dress and get my things. I tossed my messenger bag in the seat compartment of my bike, and then tossed a leg over.
“Relle.”
Shit. I fought the urge to groan out loud, kick the bike to life, and spew gravel as I roared away from the man I had once been engaged to marry.
Tohyah Yazzie was shirtless and sweaty, a sheath of broken cornstalks flung casually over one muscled shoulder. He didn’t have a stunning face, or even a remarkable one, but he had the chiseled body of a god and he was incredible in bed. And he was so fucking nice. He was the material for a perfect husband.
And the biggest reason I left the Res.
His chocolate gaze drifted over me, taking in my thigh holster and the way my tank top exposed my belly button. He chewed thoughtfully on a grain of wheat. “I’m sorry to hear about your brother. Mo was a good man.”
“He hated that nickname.”
Tohyah grinned around the wheat and tossed a lock of black hair from his forehead. “Yeah, I know.” His smile faded. “How is Haseya?”
“Planning a funeral while also planning to carry me back here kicking and screaming.”
“It’s not safe in the city.”
“You’ve never even been to the city.”
He inclined his head in agreement. “You look good, Relle. Real good.”
Heat crept up my neck, and it had nothing to do with the desert.
His grin widened. “You should stay a while.”
Dammit, why did he have to look so good?
“There’s nothing for me here,” I told him. I started the bike, drowning out anything else he might have said with the angry rumble of my Ducati.
7
I had driven Old Reservation Road so many times, I could likely have done it in my sleep.
But something felt different today. The sky, though sapphire blue, seemed pale and colorless. The sun, shining as hot as a desert sun could shine, barely warmed me. The air tasted different. The ride didn’t thrill me, even as I sped beyond the legal limits and roared towards the city skyline at a reckless pace.
I was half awake. Half alive.
My other half was dead, and with him, parts of me.
I swung by Headquarters and showered off the dust of the Res in the gym bathroom. Lacking a hair dryer, I opted to twist my unruly mane into a thick bun and secure it with a band. I never pulled my hair up. The air brushed cold and alien against my bare neck.
One of my earliest memories of my father was also my most vivid. I was five. Maybe four. We sat cross-legged in the dirt, knee to knee. Rice had a cold, so I got a precious few days without his presence, where my father’s attention could be solely on me.
He was showing me something with twine. That part of the memory is unclear. But his shining black hair hung loose and free around his body, the soft ends trailing against the desert floor. I reached out and touched the mass with my tiny fingers.
Papa laid the twine in his lap. He mimicked my touch, grasping a gentle handful of my own long hair. “Sitsi’, your hair is power. Every strand is an extension of your body. Every strand is a nerve that can send warning to you. Leave it long. Leave it loose. It will serve you well.”
When we buried him, we left his hair loose: a puddle of silky black around his strong shoulders.
I didn’t have clean clothes, so I beat the dust from my jeans and tank top as best I could before I shimmied into both and headed out the door.
The Insurgentia weren’t bad people, not truly. They were misguided and a bit overzealous. Nostalgic for a world that had never existed.
They occupied a nondescript office near the Core, close enough to the seat of the council to seem like they’d done it on purpose, but far enough away to not get caught. I’d driven Rice on the back of my bike here several times when he was too lazy to walk and couldn’t afford a cab, the only means of public transport we had in Senka Hollow.
A weathered sign over the reflective glass door stated Collier & Sons, LLC. That particular business, whatever it had been, had probably gone out of business long before the Undoing. But it was a clever disguise for the anarchists of the Hollow.
My grief had evolved somewhere between fifty and eighty miles per hour. It had been scrubbed clean by my hot shower. Now I was pissed and ready for a fight.
I tugged on the door. Locked.
I unholstered my Taurus and slammed the solid butt of the gun into the window.
Shattered glass rained down, accompanied by cries of alarm from inside. I kept the Taurus in hand — because it made me feel pretty — and reached through to flip the lock and let myself in.
The occupants of Collier & Sons scattered like roaches in the light as I strode through the dimly lit front room. The musty interior smelled of coffee and cigarette smoke. A reception desk near the door stood unoccupied, though the occupant had likely ducked beneath the moment my gun shattered the door. Two more desks flanked a door in the back wall, shadows crouched behind the flimsy metal and plywood as if I couldn’t see them.
Between the desks, a man stood by the open door: buzzed-short auburn hair, blue eyes, face twisted in shock and anger.
Josiah Bishop was the unelected leader of the Insurgentia. I’d met him once or twice, and I knew my brother was fond of the human. His too-young face was the first, and only, I needed to see.
He didn’t get a chance to open his mouth and berate me for breaking his window.
Without a pause in my stride, I slammed him against the wall with one hand.
I pressed my gun to his forehead and cocked the hammer.
Click-click.
“What happened?” I said quietly, biting out every syllable as if he were too stupid to understand spoken word.
Josiah’s eyes closed. He swallowed hard; I felt the action beneath my palm in the convulsion of his Adam’s apple. His voice trembled as he responded. “I-I don’t know. We’re trying to find out.”
“Try harder.”
He cried out as I jammed the gun into his skin. He barely held himself on his feet, most of his weight between the wall and my hand on his neck. Some part of me knew I was out of line. Tossing the weight of my authority around like a weapon. But the anger — the fucking anger, so vivid and red and blistering beneath my skin.
The Insurgentia may not have wielded the blade, but they’d killed my brother just the same by getting him involved in their underhanded stunts.
“Did he die because of his role here?” The words were bitter on my lips. I was afraid the kid would say no, argue that it was me, my fault that Rice had been killed. Maybe I would have believed him, maybe not. But I didn’t care about that; I cared about someone, anyone, telling me my brother hadn’t died because of who I was.
Tears squeezed out from beneath Josiah’s pale red lashes. “It is likely.”
My fingers tightened involuntarily. The rush of relief I should have felt for the admission didn’t come. Another blaze of red-hot rage flooded me.
“Please,” Josiah choked through my grip. “I loved Rice like a brother. Like a brother.”
“No!” I snarled, but I let go of him. Without my hand to hold him up, Josiah sank to the floor and started to cry. “He was my brother. My twin. Don’t you dare say those words to me.”
“I’m sorry!”
“What was he into, Josiah?” I snapped. I didn’t holster my gun. “Tell me now, or so help me Senka, I will crawl into that maggot-infested brain of yours and take the information I need.”
“You can’t do that,” a voice piped up from behind me. “That’s illegal.”
I lifted my gun and pointed it at the voice, but kept my eyes on Josiah. “Fucking watch me.”
“She’s the Reina’s hound, Sy, just tell her!” the girl hissed.
Josiah pulled himself together and sat up, his back against the wall as if he could hardly hold his weight. “We swear an oath of silence to protect each—”
I cut him off. “Oaths are not upheld in the instance of death. Rice is dead. That’s a little far outside the realm of needing protection. I want to know what he was into and why.”
Josiah glared at me, suddenly finding his balls now that my Taurus wasn’t clawing into his skin. An angry imprint of my gun’s muzzle blazed on his forehead. “The oaths we take are unbreakable. Death doesn’t change that.”
I squatted before him and let the Taurus dangle harmlessly. I gave him a moment to sneer at me, to believe that I wouldn’t hurt him.
Then I snatched his neck and dove in.
I wasn’t great at glamours. Mediocre with energy manipulation. But I was great at a Veritas curse.
My magick gripped his mind.
He screamed.
I shifted through his memories while I focused on the question: What had he tasked Rice to do in the days before his death? Like moths drawn to the flame of my inquiry, the correct memory presented itself to me.
Josiah sat behind a large wooden desk, a manila folder opened in front of him. A knock sounded on the door, and he said, “Come in.”
My brother, whole and healthy and alive, entered the office. I found it interesting to see Rice in Josiah’s eyes. Rice was beautiful and charming, with his long hair identical to mine and an easy-going grin. But Josiah’s memory included a rush of warmth and longing.
He’d been in love with my brother.
“Thanks for coming to see me,” Josiah said as they shook hands. “I have a job for you. It’s dangerous, but I think you might be the only person capable of completing it.”
“Why’s that?”
“You know what you told me about living on the Res? How it was so close to the Rim, you had to learn to block the darkness?”
To Rice’s credit, his eyes narrowed warily. “Yeah.”
Josiah took a deep breath. His memory included his hands shaking. “We’ve had intel that a councilman was seen traveling to the Rim under the cover of night.”
Rice straightened. “Who?”
“Weston.”
“Fuck, are you kidding me? The lead councilman?”
Josiah nodded soberly. “We need you to tail him. Follow him to the encampment and take pictures. Bring us proof.”
The memories shifted again. Three times, my brother checked in with Josiah after being tasked with his mission. Each time, he had no proof, and he grew increasingly more agitated. Josiah had begun to note the changes, to be concerned that maybe Rice hadn’t been the right person for the job.
A final memory, the night Rice died. Josiah worked late at his desk, lit by the warm glow of a small lamp. His phone rang. He lifted the old-fashioned receiver to Rice’s voice: “I did it. I got pictures. I’ll bring them tomorrow.”
But for Rice, tomorrow never came.
8
I had already straddled my Ducati before Clara caught up with me.
She started dating my brother less than a month before. She was a petite girl with insanely blonde hair and crystal blue eyes so red from crying, they seemed to glow. I liked her fierce affection for Rice, and her straightforward attitude toward life. I’d noticed a hardness to her that most girls in the Hollow — fae or human — didn’t usually have. I didn’t know her story, but I had a feeling it was at least as dark as mine.
“Relle. Hey.” She offered me a hand, which I shook. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. Me, too.” I stared right into her puffy eyes as I said, “Why’d you let him do it?”
Her jaw tightened. “We know the truth, Relle. A councilmember is shadow touched. Rice saw him at the encampment southwest of here the day he died. And if one of those fuck
ers has gone dark, there must be others. We can’t trust our council.”
“I don’t care about that,” I said, but it was a lie, because I did. I just didn’t care about that as much as I cared how big a role the Insurgentia had played in my brother’s death. “You knowingly allowed Rice to walk into a situation that would put him at risk.”
“He was willing to take the risk.”
I rubbed my brow. “Of course. Rice would have done anything he believed in enough. And now, I’m going to have to prove a prominent member of our government had him killed.” I paused, staring at her. “The Insurgentia walks a dangerous line. You might remember that the next time you’re given a task. You’ll find yourself six feet under. Like my brother.”
I turned on my bike, but Clara put a hand on my arm. “Wait!” she yelled over the engine. “I need to tell you something else.”
I didn’t turn off my bike. I tapped my Com with a single finger to indicate expediency. “You have twenty seconds.”
“Did you see him much this week?” She had to yell to be heard.
I shook my head. I’d barely been home long enough to sleep most nights, and Rice was in some kind of virtual championship for a combat game he liked. We lived together, and we loved each other dearly, but we were different people. We’d wanted it that way after moving to the city. We were tired of being Relle-and-Rice, one person instead of two our entire lives. Mainly because, to my mother, twins were sacred. Magick incarnate.
That damn ache pulsed in my chest and I fought the urge to rub it away. I’d never be able to. An invisible scar I’d carry the rest of my life.
“Something went wrong,” Clara said.
“No shit. Don’t waste my time.”
“No, Relle. I saw him night before last. His eyes were black.”
I laughed. “He’s Navajo. My entire family has nearly black eyes.”
“Relle. Listen to me. Black as in shadow touched.”
I cut the engine. “Come again?”
The Shadows and Sorcery Collection Page 5
