Dom pointed. “The nymphs are tithing over by the south gate, as usual. I’m pretty sure our plan is going to be perfect.”
I spoke through a mouthful of hard bread. “I have a moral issue with kidnapping these people after they’ve bled for Belias.”
“Shove your morals, Gad-the-good. We need that blood, too. And for better reasons than Belias’s Bathory-esque tendencies.”
“You also realize this is going to be incredibly dangerous,” I said, gnawing off another chunk of bread. “We may be shot, maimed, or dismembered.”
“So just another Tuesday in Kremlin Circle,” Dom joked. “That will only happen if we get caught. We’ve got magic on our side.”
“Speaking of magic. Where’s the old witch?”
Dom’s blue gaze tracked the distant gray forms of the nymphs as she spoke. “Setting up for the tracking spell to bring the pure blood witches to us.”
“Let’s forget my moral issues for a moment and talk about the real danger of calling magical beings to our secret hideout. Seems to me, someone’s going to notice a steady stream of people sneaking into the abandoned cathedral like magic zombies.”
Dom snatched the rest of my bread and shoved it in her mouth. “First of all, don’t call it a secret hideout like you’re Batman.”
I grinned. “Two points for the archaic superhero reference. Minus two points because he had a Batcave, not a secret hideout.”
Dom rolled her eyes. “Men are the same across species, I see.”
“Part of our charm.”
“Second,” Dom said pointedly, “they’re not coming to us. That would be dumb. We’re going to them.”
“Back underground? Are there many purebloods in the underground?”
“I don’t know a single one. We’ve become a melting pot down there. No, we’re going to the old metro station to do the spell. Neutral ground.”
“I thought the old subway was flooded out.”
“What happens to water when the world freezes?” Dom bared her teeth like a chimp ready to party. “It’s gonna be slippery.”
As we waited out the morning, Dom moved upstairs to begin setup for the final spell, so that when we had all the pieces in place to anoint the weapon, we could move fast. Down in an empty hall of faded artwork, I continued working on the sword.
Right now, it was nothing more than a thick, heavy bone in my hands, slowly being carved to a wicked point. It thrummed with an energy I didn’t fully understand—life, maybe. Or death. Or possibly something to do with Drakoi’s living occupation as a man of faith. Either way, the bone nearly hummed with power and potential. The smooth, hard material warmed between my fingers as I worked.
I was lost in the task, my thoughts blessedly empty, when Dom appeared in the hallway, shrugging into a long, black cloak.
She tossed a second, bigger cloak at me. “You ready?”
I set the sharpened bone on my pile of blankets and pulled the robe over my body. By the time I’d tied it off and added the hooded cloak, Dom was already costumed and ready to leave.
Seeing her dressed like a tithe-bound made my stomach turn. Her beauty was such that if anyone saw her, they’d believe her to actually be a tithe-bound—including the nymphs. She needed to play the part right and keep the hell away from those nightmarish creatures.
“Don’t talk,” I reminded her. “Don’t step out of line. And for fuck’s sake, do not remove the hood.”
“I know, Gad. But your concern is sweet.” She flashed a grin.
I cleared my throat as I averted my eyes from her infuriatingly sexy grin. “How are we going to get out of here without being seen?”
“Yulian glamoured the front door before he left for the metro station. We should be able to pass without anyone seeing us.”
“We’re going to be invisible to the entire Square full of people?”
“Like ghosts. Until we are well enough away from St. Basil’s that no one will know we came from here.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised to find Yulian had covered all his bases, or that his magic was powerful enough to move us unseen from the cathedral. Yet more proof that I’d come to the right witch.
When all was said and done, I’d owe the old man big time.
The sun hung high, a pale disk behind a thin veneer of dark clouds. Intermittent snowflakes drifted from the sky to settle on our black robes as we navigated the busy Square. As obnoxious as it was to be covered literally head to toe, I had to admit it made for a toasty warm walk.
We’d agreed on a starting point several blocks away, on the main road where many of the tithes traveled from the outlying districts. We needed to station ourselves far enough away to not be seen by the nymphs, but close enough to appear as nothing more than yet another tithe-bound and her escort were someone to see us.
Loitering in Kremlin Circle was a good way to get ice demons up your ass, so we ducked behind an old boarded up deli, where we had a decent view of the Square and the tithing booth.
Dom slid down the brick façade and stretched her legs out, her boots displacing gray snow as she made a nest out of her heavy black cloak. Her voice came out muffled beneath the hood. “Cold as balls today.”
“Balls aren’t actually cold,” I pointed out.
“As an organ? Sure. But men are cold as ice.”
I laughed, though in all honesty, it made perfect sense.
The street into and out of the Square spread empty and unmoving. No set schedule had ever been set to dictate the tithes; they merely had to arrive sometime between sunrise and sunset. Which meant we could be waiting a while. I took a seat across from her, my back against the opposite wall, and settled in to wait.
Some time passed. Small snowflakes fell and faded around us. I’d never been the type to fill silence with casual conversation. Surprisingly, it seemed Dom wasn’t the type for that, either. The silence didn’t feel uncomfortable or awkward, like it did with most people. With Dom, it felt natural.
And then she spoke.
“Catie was a teacher?”
I jumped, startled by her sudden voice. My hands fisted in my robe at my wife’s name. “Uh, yeah. High school history.”
The cloak hid Dom’s face completely, but I could sense her regard from deep within. “I wonder how she would have taught the last fifty years.”
“Don’t trust demons. Steer clear of Belias.” I paused, my good humor fading as my wife’s smile drifted into my memories. “Hold on to the people you love.”
“She would have aged?”
My heart constricted. “Yeah. She would be in her late seventies now. Our daughter would be middle-aged. Married. I’d be a grandfather.”
“Did that ever scare you? The thought of them growing old while you stayed the same.”
“Of course. No one wants to know their time is finite with the people they love. But you just live for every day. Don’t take it for granted.”
Dom shifted, her long legs crossing. “I’m sorry. Not just for you and her, but the kid, too. Nobody should have to watch their family die.”
I closed my eyes against that memory. “Did you watch yours die?”
Dom shrugged. “I don’t know. I was five when Yulian took me in. All I told him was the demons killed my family. I don’t have any memory of it or any memory of my life before he took me in.”
“Is that a blessing or a curse?”
Dom lifted two pale hands to her hood and gently lowered it. She studied me, my own face still hidden in darkness.
“Both,” she finally said, her husky voice so low I barely heard her. “It’s both.”
A light tinkle of laughter carried to us from beyond the alley. Dom flipped her hood back into place, and we stood, peering out into the street.
A small, black-robed figure floated gracefully down the sidewalk. Her escort, twice her size and built like a brick wall, stalked behind her. Despite the hood covering his face, I could tell he saw everything.
“Of course our first target is bei
ng guarded by Attila the Hun,” I griped after they’d passed our hiding spot on their way to the nymphs.
Dom shushed me and replied in a whisper, “He’s not that big.”
“Tell that to Godzilla over there.”
I couldn’t see her face because of the hood, but I heard the smile in her words. “Scared, Gad?”
“Of what? The small mountain I’ll have to take down? Nah.”
“You’re no slouch in the mountain department, either.”
I grinned. “Sweetheart. You noticed!”
Dom groaned, clearly not amused by my sense of humor.
We both fell silent as the tithe-bound stepped up to the nymphs to give sacrifice.
A petal-white hand fluttered out from beneath the black robes. The slight figure didn’t even flinch as the faceless demon sliced her skin. Then the nymph roughly took hold of the woman’s hand and turned her palm down over the bowl. I gritted my teeth as the woman’s dark red blood oozed into the cauldron.
“It’s disgusting,” Dom grumbled. “This use of humans.”
“We’re about to do the same thing,” I pointed out, my gaze still on the tithe woman. She had withdrawn her hand, accepting a handkerchief from her partner as they turned away from the tithing booth.
Dom’s voice was grim as she said, “No, we’re not.”
Before I could ask her to explain what she meant by that, Dom tossed the hood over her head and stepped out of the alley.
Showtime.
We fell into step, Dom ahead of me and to my right, as all tithes walked with their bodyguards. My decades of watching all the activity in the Square had finally paid off, though not in a way I had ever imagined.
The pair left the tithing booth and walked toward us, unaware anything was amiss. As we drew near, the taller, thicker bodyguard nodded to me, his face concealed by his black hood. The show of solidarity was foreign among most passersby. Kremlin Circle had a head-down, no-eye-contact mentality. That tilt of his head, as small and inconsequential as it was, held a world of understanding. One tithe-bound family to another.
Which made our deception feel like that much more of a betrayal.
For the greater good, I reminded myself.
I returned the nod, my heart pounding. Adrenaline coursed through me and made my body feel airy and insubstantial. I felt outside of myself, just an observer watching four figures on a game board, puppeted by invisible hands.
Dom had timed our walk perfectly—we met the advancing pair by the alley, exactly as we’d planned. I couldn’t pretend to be shocked at her precision. The woman’s brain was as sexy as the rest of her.
Then we were level with the tithe-bound. I fingered the dagger beneath my cloak, hoping I would have no need of it.
But sneak attacks in our world weren’t the smartest move.
17
Dom launched at the woman, and the two of them disappeared into the alley in the blink of an eye. I followed, hitting the bodyguard’s solid bulk with everything I had. We tumbled into the alley behind the women.
The bodyguard reacted to my assault immediately, proving he was clearly the right person for the job of protecting the tithe-bound. He carried the momentum of my body with the grace of a much smaller man, rolling me over his head as if I weighed nothing. The world twisted and dipped, and I hit the cobblestones on my back, the breath whooshing from my lungs.
The bodyguard straddled my torso. His fist hit my face. And fuck, it hurt.
Behind us, Dom hissed, “Stop! We aren’t going to hurt you!”
Through a haze of pain and disorientation, I watched the bodyguard whip off his hood. Green eyes studied the women just outside my line of vision.
“What is this?” he demanded in a thick local accent.
“Can you let my friend up, please?” Dom asked carefully. “We truly mean you no harm.”
“Then why did you attack us?” This was a new voice, melodic and light like the tinkle of church bells.
“We need your help.” Dom’s tone was hushed but determined.
“You could have simply asked,” the melodic voice said wryly.
“That was my suggestion, as well,” I offered from beneath the mountain of bodyguard.
As if suddenly reminded he still sat on my chest, the bodyguard stood and offered me a hand up. “My apologies. How is your face?”
I rubbed my jawbone, giving a few experimental clicks of my teeth. “Still attached. Nice punch.”
“Nice attack.”
“Don’t lie to save my ego,” I joked.
We joined the women, the bodyguard in all his manliness and me with a possibly shattered jaw that hurt like a sonofabitch. The tithe-bound was lovely, with thick dark hair and clear, pale skin—eerily similar to Dom. Like her bodyguard, she also had eyes the color of spring grass—though few alive in Kremlin Circle would even know about spring grass.
Side by side and uncovered by their hoods, I could tell the two were related.
“I’m Dominika, and this is my comrade, Gadreel,” Dom said.
The woman touched her chest. “Ana, and my brother, Adrian.”
“Why did you bring us here?” Adrian asked. Of the two, he seemed the most guarded. He was nearly as pretty as his sister, despite his stature, and I wondered if there were a time when he thought their roles might be reversed.
If it were me, I’d live under a lifelong burden of guilt that my sister had to be blood tithe for our family. If I’d just been prettier, she could have had a normal life.
Which could explain why Adrian took his job so seriously.
Dom straightened her shoulders and looked Adrian in the eye—fearless, as usual. “We are working with a small group of rebels to develop a spell that might defeat Belias. Are you sympathetic to that plight?”
I had to bite back a laugh at “small group of rebels.” An ancient witch with failing eyesight, a human with mood swings, and an ex-angel who hadn’t wanted to do this in the first place qualified for less than a “small group.”
Ana sucked in a surprised breath, then curled her recently sliced palm into a fist. “Yes. We are sympathizers.”
“Ana!” her brother admonished, gripping her arm to drag her away from Dom. “This could be a trap.”
“It’s not a trap. Don’t be silly.” Ana brushed his hand away and returned her attention to Dom. “Please, what can we do to help?”
“We are asking no more of you than Belias herself,” Dom said. “The spell we have is an ancient and arcane one, and we have it on good authority that it can best the demon queen. However, it requires the blood of seven pure humans.”
Ana didn’t hesitate. She held out her palm, where the wound was still congealing from her blood tithe. Dom gasped.
The woman’s palm was a mass of thick, white scar tissue.
Ana looked down at her ruined palm with a grimace. “I know. It is the most un-beautiful part of me, is it not?”
“No.” I cupped her palm between both of my hands and caught her gaze.
She stared at me with clear, wide eyes completely unmarred by age lines. She was young enough to have never seen summer or a meadow, and I was likely the first man not of her bloodline to ever touch her.
“This is the most beautiful part of you,” I assured her. “This is your strength and your will to survive made physical.”
Ana flushed and ducked her head, breaking eye contact. “Thank you.”
Adrian studied me. I could tell by the wary look on his face that he wasn’t sure if I was trying to pull moves on his sister, or if I was on her side.
“It’s unfair what life has done to you,” I told Ana. I kept my voice measured and distant, so I didn’t find myself even more acquainted with her brother’s fists. “We are working to ensure you no longer have to tithe to the demon queen.”
Ana nodded once. “Then I give you my blood of my own free will.”
Dom extracted one of Yulian’s capped vials from her robes and pulled the cork. Ana pumped her fist until her
wound opened again, and held her hand over the vial.
It took very little to fill the vial, thank God. I didn’t think I could handle standing there and watching Ana bleed for us for long. The unfairness of her lot in life left a sour taste in my mouth; she was barely out of her teens, robbed of a chance for love or a family.
I hoped we could make good on our end of the bargain. Her blood in exchange for freedom.
“Any chance you’re pure, too?” I asked Adrian, only half joking.
“Only in your dreams.” He winked, slow and suggestive.
Great. I tried to be a gentleman with Ana only for Adrian to think that meant I swung his way instead.
Ana curled her bloody palm into a fist and squeezed Dom’s hand with the other. “Thank you, and Godspeed.”
In the silence following their departure, Dom and I stared at one another beneath the dim light of the alley. We were cocooned here between two tall buildings, shielded from the brisk wind and the horror of life out there in the Circle.
Hollows beneath Dom’s eyes marred her clear, pale skin. With our audience gone, she had let go of her animation, and all that remained was a visible pall of exhaustion. Worry creased her brow as she looked down at the blood-filled vial in her hand.
“You did good,” I finally said, the words falling short of the comfort I wished I could give her.
She smiled briefly. “Thanks for taking a punch for the cause.”
“You liked that, didn’t you?”
Dom laughed, and suddenly she was back, all strength and poise and determination, as if she’d donned a new mantle. She pulled up her hood, hiding her teasing face. In another life, she would have been a tithe. Maybe that was why Ana had trusted her. Solidarity in beauty, just as Adrian had offered solidarity to me as protector.
I replaced my hood and fell into step behind Dom. Even though I could no longer see her face, it remained first and foremost in my mind’s eye.
Dom wasn’t just another pretty face hidden away from the Circle. She was a complicated—but badass—woman, and the longer I spent in her company, the easier it felt to exist in this world.
The Shadows and Sorcery Collection Page 29
