The Shadows and Sorcery Collection

by Heather Marie Adkins

  And then there was the slave trade. Not a very big trade, considering how small the Circle really was, so not many people knew about it. I did, mostly because I made it a point to observe everything.

  I knew that the slaves were taken to a side door in Belias’s palace, where I assumed she—as the end-all, be-all of everything that happened in our world—would view the slaves, choose any she wanted, kill any she disliked, and send the traders on their way with whatever leftovers for indentured servitude in the North District.

  The farther we walked, and the closer we got to the watchtower, the more my nerves frayed. The demon queen and I hadn’t exactly parted ways on good terms the last time we spoke. I remembered vividly a parting threat on my life she was sure to make good on if she came face-to-face with me.

  The Kremlin loomed ahead, haloed by a ring of white clouds and dark as the night sky, with bricks stained by time and death. Before Belias, the gigantic, sprawling fortress had seemed intimidating. After Belias, the place turned into a gateway to hell—proof that places could embody their benefactors.

  The four traders that flanked us angled our shackled line toward a nearly unseen side door at the watchtower, where two nymphs slouched against the gates as if waiting for us. The taller of the two demons straightened as we approached, hands resting on her curvaceous hips.

  “Twelve fresh ones,” the lead trader said as he leered at the nymph’s bare, ambiguous breasts: two milky mounds with no nipples. “The queen is expecting us.”

  The nymph lifted one finger, then pointed at the door. The second, smaller nymph opened it.

  The slave trader snapped his fingers at one of his lackeys, who unshackled the first slave from our train and led her to the door. I watched her go, already confident in her fate. She had long, ebony hair as shiny as crow’s wings, and pale, unmarked skin like moonshine. She’d be dead the moment Belias laid eyes on her.

  Much like me, really. Most days, I didn’t regard myself as any kind of sexual object. Catie had been gone so long, and no other women could dare eclipse my wife, that I’d forgotten how to be intimate. But the truth remained: I was thick and muscular, with skin like chocolate and a face that made women blush. Eons ago, Belias hated me as much as she desired me.

  Which didn’t bode well for today.

  As the door closed behind the doomed woman, I took stock of my situation. I was chained to two men: one in front of me and one behind me. The Square bustled with a midday crowd, which meant enough cover under which to disappear. The hard part would be escaping the shackles in a timely manner, and evading the four traders young and spry enough to pose a threat.

  I hated to press it so close, to put myself in danger by being so near to Belias’s sharp claws, but I’d have to run when they unshackled me. The chained boots would be a minor problem. As long as no one in the crowd stepped on the damn things as I bolted, I could bear the weight. Better to drag a little extra poundage around than come face-to-face with a blood-thirsty demon while weak and half comatose.

  And I was that. Despite the fact I now felt more human than I had while lying naked on the floor of that North District mansion, I still hadn’t had time to recuperate.

  I was a sitting duck for Belias.

  As I’d expected, the slave trader returned without the female slave. He shrugged at his boss—a flippant jerk of his bony shoulder that indicated he had no control over our insane leader—and took his place beside us as another trader dragged the next slave through the door.

  Four more to go.

  Turned out, however, I wasn’t the only one with a plan to run. Crazy, really; I had acclimated to an existence where everyone kept their head down and did what they were told. Kremlin wasn’t a society easy on rebellion.

  Like anything you just don’t get to see often enough when you’d really like to, anarchy made me smile.

  The next man bolted the moment he was unlatched from the train. He loped away, ungainly in his chained boots, and I cheered him on with a grunt. But the trader was faster: he stomped on the chains dragging from the man’s boots, and the slave pitched forward to the cobblestones.

  Ah. Not just for heft, then.

  The slaver delivered a vicious kick to the slave’s groin, and another to his head, letting loose a stream of expletives to punctuate his blows. Finally, the man lay still, eyes closed as blood trickled from his nose. I couldn’t tell whether he lived or not. If he did, he probably had a few broken bones. And he definitely wasn’t any good for the demon queen now.

  The slave trader returned to the line, removed the next slave, and disappeared inside.

  And then there was me.

  None of the other traders paid any mind to the prone, bloody slave on the ground, which led me to believe would-be escapees were the norm. I had noted, of course, the way the trader had used the dangling chains to stop the man from escaping. Smart—smarter than I expected from idiots like this. But the muscle never needed to be smart. They just needed to be strong enough to carry out the leader’s plan.

  So not only did I need to be quick, I needed to get those chains out of range of the trader’s boots before he could stop me.

  Easier said than done. I’d need to be smart and light on my feet.

  My heart stuttered as the trader returned. He gave his boss a thumbs-up; Belias had approved of that one, it seemed. He returned to the beaten man, and another trader stepped up for me.

  I focused on my breathing as the man unlocked my shackles. From my periphery, I could see the boss chatting amicably with one of his men, while another eyed me coldly, as if he could sense that I was a flight risk.

  I adapted to that look. I followed the trader, slumping my shoulders and lowering my eyes in a mimic of defeat. The man who had been eyeing me suspiciously turned his attention to the remaining slaves, dismissing his gut feeling over me.

  Bad for him.

  I twirled like a goddamn ballerina, dancing away on my tiptoes. The chains whipped in a circle around me for several feet, the Square a dizzying whirl of color in my vision, and then I ran.

  And by God, it actually worked. The trader lumbered after me, yelling threats, but I was already halfway down the block and gaining speed.

  I laughed out loud. Damn, but it felt good to outsmart those idiots. Not to mention, I wouldn’t have to go through that door and die because Belias held grudges better than anybody I’d ever met.

  A gunshot cracked through the market. Screams followed as the crowd dropped to the ground, afraid the bullet was coming for them.

  The bullet wasn’t meant for any of them. The tiny shard of molten metal ripped through my shoulder. I cried out and stumbled in my heavy boots. The bullet tore right through me, exiting out my chest, and the momentum threw me to the ground.

  I hit the cobblestones face-first, and pain exploded in my cheek from the impact. I rolled to my back, fists up, already biting back the pain in my face, ignoring the flow of blood from my chest.

  I wouldn’t go down without a fight.

  The elegantly dressed leader of the slavers strolled over to me, seemingly unconcerned whether I could get away or not. The barrel of his antique pistol smoked as he aimed it at my head.

  “Idiotic move, son.” He tutted. “Our queen would have liked your pretty face. Now look at it—you’re going to have one hell of a shiner.”

  I shifted my weight and kicked out, one heavy boot connecting with his shin. He shrieked, and his gun exploded, chipping cobblestones by my ear. As he collapsed to the ground beside me, his lackeys rushed to his aid.

  I hit one man in the nose with an elbow, relishing the crack of his fragile human bones, and then I aimed my fist into a second man’s ribs, sending the blow through his body as if I could reach the other side. High on adrenaline, I barely felt the hot pain of my gunshot wound.

  Both men fell away with moans of agony. I grinned at the opening, ready to leap to my feet and run for the hills.

  As quickly as I saw freedom, I saw it disappear. My show
of brute strength wouldn’t do me any good.

  Because a crowd of nymphs armed with blood-stained daggers raced towards me.

  9

  And…curtain.

  At least, I thought it would be. For a brief moment, I envisioned my body sliced and diced right there in the market for all the world to see.

  Until a leggy, avenging angel in black leather pants and a full-length, fur-lined leather coat bounded from the crowd.

  Long black hair trailed from beneath the hood of her coat, though her face remained hidden in shadow. She took down the remaining slave trader with a deadly swipe of her dagger. He grasped his neck and fell, his life bleeding out in a pressurized arc between his fingers, as she swiveled to swipe a high-heeled boot at the leader’s head before he could raise his gun.

  She stepped over me and crouched, her long legs straddling my torso. Her face, hidden beneath the hood of her fur coat, slid into view as she clutched my shirt in both hands and lifted me bodily off the ground.

  Her face was all delicate angles and a high arched brow over crystalline blue eyes. She had the face of an angel with perfect skin, every line drawn by the hand of God himself.

  The kind of face Belias would rip off with her bare hands.

  “Can you walk?” my savior asked, a throaty accent passing her red lips.

  I laughed, and blood spurted from the hole in my chest. “Probably.”

  “Probably isn’t good enough.” She glanced back at the nymphs, who were nearly on top of us. She sighed, blowing an errant lock of hair from her face. “I hate using magic.”

  Before I could comment, she reached into her coat and pulled out a velvet sachet. She tugged open the gold ties and let the dust sprinkle over us. “Hold your breath.”

  Not a hard command to obey—her flawless beauty, her throaty voice, her long legs open on either side of me. And the cold, merciless way she had killed a man and kicked another… She’d already stolen my breath and awakened things in me I’d thought long dead. Even with a goddamn hole in my chest.

  The cold, snowy ground beneath me fell away. I pitched through the empty vacuum of space, losing grip on my own body in the darkness. I reached out, clutching for the raven-haired woman, but found only empty matter.

  Then I hit ground again. Hard. The breath I’d been holding expelled violently from me, and a fresh wave of agony passed through my gunshot wound, followed by more hot, oozing blood.

  Buildings rose on either side of me: dark forms illuminated by strange orange lights. The street was unfamiliar, but blessedly empty of slave traders or nymphs. Or anybody really.

  The woman stood over me, legs shoulder width apart, hands on her slender hips. And she’d done it all in high-heeled boots.

  Fuck. Me.

  I thought I must have been hallucinating, maybe from lack of blood. But the orange light flickered on her face, and then disappeared into a deep, dark abyss above her head. I could see no stars, no clouds, no hint of the gray winter sky. The street, if that’s what it really was, felt enclosed.

  I opened my mouth to thank her for saving me and ask where the hell we were, and got a boot to my head for my trouble.

  When I awoke sometime later, I found my accommodations to be somewhat better than the place where the slave traders had kept me. But just barely.

  The small square room had no windows, but it did have a bed, where I lay beneath clean blankets. I wasn’t naked or chained, which was definitely a step in the right direction, but I was quite obviously drugged.

  I tried to sit up. My head felt as heavy as a bag of bricks. I reached a trembling hand to my shoulder, searching for the bullet wound that no longer hurt. Thick bandages swaddled my bare torso. They’d cleaned and dressed the wound.

  So…not enemies?

  I attempted to sit up again and made it as far as slouching against the wall. The room swirled from what I assumed were painkillers in my system—black-market drugs. Belias liked her people in constant pain, so medicine to ease suffering had been outlawed years ago.

  The whirling sensation reminded me of the way the woman had sprinkled dust over me and sent us both gliding through the folds of time and space. I hadn’t traveled like that since before I lost my wings. She’d transported us using magic.

  Witch magic.

  If the witches had me, then I’d landed exactly where I needed to be. Except, I no longer had my bow, nor did I have Raphael’s cipher. Couldn’t protect myself, couldn’t ask for help deciphering a code I didn’t have.

  Fucking great.

  Regardless, someone had to know Yulian.

  A part of me ached at the thought of the old witch. I hadn’t seen him in ages—fifty years? Fifty-five? I couldn’t bring myself to see him, to look into his green eyes. Catie’s eyes. She’d loved her uncle with a kind of fierce loyalty some people would never know.

  Maybe that’s why the thought of seeing him hurt more than helped. He’d be an old man now. Witches aged, though slower than humans. I often wondered what Catie would have looked like now, sixty years into our life together while I aged not at all.

  I slept on and off for several hours, until a kind-faced woman in blue scrubs woke me with a gentle tap on my hand.

  “I’m just going to take your blood pressure,” she told me in a soft voice. “You don’t have to move.”

  “Where am I?” I asked as she wound the blood pressure cuff around my arm.

  “You’re in the Underground,” she replied, as if it made all the sense in the world.

  “And that is where, exactly?”

  “Underground,” the nurse said wryly as she placed her stethoscope in her ears.

  I stayed quiet as she counted my heartbeats. When she removed the stethoscope, she motioned to my bandages. “This might sting. I’m going to check the wound. The healing should be nearly done.”

  “Done?” I asked, shocked, though I lay still as she gently pulled at the tape holding down the gauze.

  She chuckled. “I guess you haven’t been told a whole lot. Doesn’t surprise me. Dominika isn’t one to mince words.”

  “Dominika?” I realized how dumb I sounded repeating her every word, and I corrected myself. “Who’s Dominika?”

  “Tall, dark-haired, legs for days.” The nurse winked. “You’ll know her when you see her.” She poked around beneath my bandages and made a few agreeable noises. “Yes. Looking very good. I’d say another night and you’ll be good as new.”

  “Another night? How long have I been here?”

  “Two days. Your wound took a toll on you. My scan told me you’d recently been sick, so of course, that’s likely why your body reacted so badly.”

  Two days. On top of however long I’d lay chained in the slave trader’s prison. And the three days I’d searched fruitlessly for Yulian. At least a week had passed since Liliya was taken right out from under me.

  A week. I couldn’t even pretend Belias had let the kid live this long. I was too late to save her.

  “I need Yulian.” I clutched the nurse’s thin wrist. “Yulian…fuck, I don’t remember his last name. He’s my uncle. My wife’s uncle. Do you know him?”

  The nurse put a cool hand on my forehead and gently pressed me into the pillows. “Rest, sweetheart. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

  “Yulian,” I repeated. “Please. Is he still alive?”

  She blinked at me, as if finally realizing I had no clue about anything. “Yes. He’s still alive. What is your name?”

  “Gadreel.”

  She nodded. “Okay. I will tell him you’re asking for him. But you must promise me to rest.”

  It wasn’t a hard thing to promise. Between the meds and the sheer exhaustion of my body healing, I was asleep before she left the room.

  When I next opened my eyes, I wasn’t alone.

  Yulian sat on a chair five feet away, his enigmatic gaze on me as he puffed gently on a pipe. I recognized him immediately. The man hadn’t aged a day since last I saw him.

  Gretchen used
to call him Uncle Santa, because he looked so much like a wise mage Santa Claus, though much skinnier. His white beard trailed in a perfect point down to his navel, and his thick white hair fell even longer than that. A thin pair of spectacles rested on the tip of his pointed nose. He lifted his head to look at me through the tiny rounds of glass.

  “Gadreel. Long time.” Despite his ancient, otherworldly appearance, his voice was still strong and sure, with a hint of the old world in it—like the woman who’d saved me. The pipe dangled between his lips as if an extension of his body, emitting a fragrant tobacco scent.

  “Tobacco hasn’t existed in the Circle since before the rift curse,” I said in response.

  “Tobacco grows in my backyard. But that’s neither here nor there.” Yulian puffed on the pipe before he removed it from his lips and squinted at me. “What are you doing here?”

  “The better question is why did I end up here?” I retorted. “Some badass chick in leather and heels saved me from certain death, then knocked me out. Here I am.”

  A small smile danced across Yulian’s thin lips, but he suppressed it almost as soon as it debuted. He formed his next words with care, each syllable a slice that cut me worse than the bullet in my chest. “You shut me out, Gadreel. We were family, and you shut me out.”

  “Catie… With her gone, I figured we didn’t have… We aren’t blood.”

  “Blood has nothing to do with family. Family goes much, much deeper than bloodlines and birth.” Yulian stretched out his legs, well-worn leather boots appearing from beneath the long blue robe he wore. “Did it never occur to you that having you in my life would ease my suffering over Catelyn’s death? Or vice versa?”

  “I thought it would make it worse.” My excuses seemed hollow now, sitting before Catie’s favorite uncle and reliving those memories. Despite his irritation and the obvious grudge he held for my disappearance, I sensed warmth behind his green-eyed gaze. Affection.

  Maybe even a sense of relief.