Hearts of Shadow (Deadglass #2) Page 13

His body vibrated with unspent need. It was all he could do not to jump the woman like a dying man in the desert.

  It had been a long drought. And he was sorely in need of an oasis.

  He suspected they both were, Unraveling and demigods aside; their personal demons thundered through their minds even in this quiet solitude behind the warded doors. Maybe this could be a chance for both to find some small respite.

  But he knew deep in his dragon bones that once he had Grace he would not give her up. Not for Kingu. Not for his kingdom. And not for the haunted ghost of his dead and thrice-damned brother.

  Leif wasn’t any good at politics, but this was one thin sheet of ice that he had a vested interest in crossing over. Every time he thought he had her figured out and stuffed into a properly shaped cube, she turned into a dodecahedron. The Unexpected heated a fire in his blood, and she was unexpected.

  He wouldn’t push her to do something she truly didn’t want, but damned if he would sit back and let her walk away simply because she was afraid to seize it. He’d had his doubts, but after that little display, she couldn’t hide that she wanted him. She might hate herself for it. But he wasn’t his brother. He wasn’t a monster. And he would prove it to her if Tiamat herself rose up from the depths and laid carnage for his weakness.

  Some of his feeling must have slipped into his eyes, because she backed up, raised her pert nose into the air and turned away like she hadn’t just made love to his wrist.

  “How do you feel?” His voice churned out like he’d swallowed the whiskey rocks.

  She looked around, anywhere but at him. “Fine.”

  He had to give her just enough space not to scare her off, but he wouldn’t let her out of his sight. Even if he didn’t want to explore this thing between them, the aptrgangr were after her. She might be a fighter, but she was his to protect.

  “So you don’t know anything about the Heart?” she asked.

  “Longren is the oldest among us. He would know if anyone does.”

  Her lips thinned.

  “He will do you no harm.”

  She snorted. “I can take care of myself.”

  Mount Si rose cragged from the small mountain range known as the Issaquah Alps. Pre-Unraveling, it had been popular with hikers. The entrance to Longren’s lair hid on the leeward side of Haystack Rock, the bald outcropping at the mountain’s peak. Unlike Sven’s civilized eco-dwelling, with its proper roof and elegant seaward windows, Longren lived in a primitive hole in the ground. Leif almost expected ox bones at the foot of the cliff and a burnt path leading directly to the cave mouth, but there were no clues that the mountain housed anything but dirt, except a few talon marks on rock, broken trees at tail height, and blackened branches. The clouds covered the mountain so often that even the smoke from Longren’s chimneys blended into the grey sky.

  Longren met them himself. He wore a green smoking jacket, no shirt, and snakeskin pants.

  Landing in a wide clearing, Leif bowed so that Grace could climb off his back. She jumped down and stretched her legs. She’d wanted to ride a horse. A three-day ride on an ill-tempered beast just so she wouldn’t have to acknowledge the beauty of the dragon’s flight. Riding on his back by choice crossed a line; she couldn’t pretend he was either man or monster anymore. He was both and neither, something otherworldly and majestic. Determined to show her, he had swooped low over Lake Washington and dragged his tail in the midnight waters. She hadn’t been able to hide her whoop of excitement. Flying beneath the starry sky was the closest to heaven his kind could get.

  He’d never shared it with a human before.

  Leif Turned and the leather harness fell to the ground.

  “Clothe yourself, fledgling, before the lady faints.” Longren stared fixedly at the sky. He sighed. “I don’t suppose you’ve changed your mind?”

  “No.” Leif pulled his clothes out of the leather satchel attached to the harness and dressed. “We need information.”

  Highly territorial, Drekar didn’t let other Drekar into their space unless coerced. Sven’s brilliance had been in uniting the Drekar from the western United States and up into Canada beneath his rule. He dangled economic and political promises in front of them like candy, and if they didn’t fall in line he killed them. His rule had lasted more than a century—the longest-running Drekar fiefdom of its size in the Western world. In his absence, Drekar had moved to reclaim their small, personal territories. Leif had been content to let them do so, except now the threat of a ruler worse than Sven challenged them all. Kingu wouldn’t bother dangling economic partnerships. It would be all blood, all the time. No peace for Leif’s experiments. No peace for any of them.

  Longren paused at the cave entrance, but he couldn’t refuse a visit from the Regent. Leading them through the dark mouth of the cave, he strolled down the tunnel deeper into the belly of the mountain. The rough dirt walls gave way to an arched ceiling lined with purple velvet. Pop art hung on the walls between the flaring torches—soup cans and splatter paint and more than a few pictures of Marilyn Monroe. Leif suspected if he looked closer he might find a couple velvet Elvises.

  “So what is it, Regent?” Longren asked. “Have need of a lost Athenian tragedy? An abandoned work by the Marquis de Sade? Want to know who really pulled the strings when Paris went to war, hmm? What artifact of history draws you to my doorstep?”

  “What do you know about Tiamat’s Heart?”

  Longren flashed a startled look back at him. The torchlight cast shadows over half his face. The hollows of his cheeks were stark. “Ever wondered why Drekar have no souls?”

  Leif shook his head. “I’ve never had much interest in the tall tales behind the science.” Aether, like oxygen or hydrogen, had the same properties no matter what one believed about it. When Einstein and other midcentury human scientists decided the Aether was no longer needed to explain waves of light, Aether didn’t cease to exist. It still quietly wove the fabric of the universe. Myths were cultural relics; they changed like the tide. Leif held little stock in them.

  “And you,” Longren asked Grace, “do you find solace in fairy stories?”

  Grace walked a step behind Leif. Her boots tripped to keep up with the two Drekar’s long strides. “I know Tiamat was butchered for parts. I know Marduk split the worlds and set up the Gates. His city, Babylon, was the original Gateway to the Gods. If a myth doesn’t relate to the Gates and sending wraiths across them, I’m out of tricks.”

  Because Sven had trained her, and Sven had never believed in giving people more information than he wanted them to have. Longren was probably the same way. Leif didn’t have time to wheedle every last scrap of evidence out of the Dreki. Threatening Longren would be the first step on that long slope down into dictatorship, but Leif would do it, if he had to. Being the Regent had its perks.

  “It’s not a well-known story,” Longren admitted. “And I could never find the original material. I found an extended epilogue to the Tiamat legend in an antiquities market. It was a copy of a copy of a copy. Hardly worth noting, but it explained so much of our origins.”

  “And it mentions Tiamat’s Heart?” Leif asked.

  “And so much more, dear boy.” Longren led them out of the tunnel and into a wide cavern. Two glass panels divided the room into three sections: In the middle, young men—human, muscled, and model pretty—worked shirtless in the heat of a forge. Sweat dripped down their chests, but the glass protected the other two sections from the heat and humidity. The men pounded steel into swords and shields. On the far side sat three industrial sewing machines. Bolts of sequined fabric leaned against the wall.

  The section closest to the tunnel mouth held velvet couches and a wet bar. A thick shag carpet in red, orange and yellow covered the floor, and a fieldstone fireplace heated the room. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases covered each wall. Candelabras reflected off a disco ball, sending light sparkling across the lounge. Cats occupied every horizontal inch of furniture.

  “It’s a pity you didn’t
inherit any of your mother’s dramatic talent,” Longren said. “The world was a dimmer place when we lost her star.” He poured himself a drink from the bar. “Help yourself to a drink, and sit. Don’t mind the puddles of fur.”

  Leif poured himself and Grace each a finger of brandy and shooed a tortoiseshell cat off one of the velvet couches. As soon as he sat down, two more cats mobbed his lap. He scratched one under the chin. It purred happily. Grace curled up with her drink in the thick shag carpet by the fire. Strands of wet hair plastered to her cheeks. She watched the forgers through the glass; the cats watched her.

  “So Tiamat’s Heart. Let me start at the beginning.” Longren moved to stand on the opposite side of the fireplace and set his glass on the mantel. He cleared his throat. “In the beginning”—his voice boomed theatrically off the glass panels—“there were the primordial waters: Tiamat, the salt water, and Apsu, the fresh. Yin and yang. Two halves of the whole. And all was as it should be.” He took a sip from his glass for dramatic pause. “But then they had children, the original pantheon of Babylonian gods. Dratted, ungrateful little beasts. Their children grew jealous of their parents’ perfect love. One of them slew Apsu, and Tiamat, crazed with grief, swore revenge. She birthed the world’s monsters”—he laid a modest hand on his chest to indicate himself and his dragon brethren—“and gave them to her lover Kingu to lead in battle against the gods.”

  “Along with the Tablets of Destiny,” Leif added. Grace’s attention had been caught by Longren’s overly dramatic recitation. He was certainly a character. One edge of her stern mouth kicked up. What would it be like to make that mouth curve all the way? To make her let go enough to laugh when she wanted? He narrowed in on the idea. His mind set about plotting.

  “Correct, but for this tale it suffices to say she trusted Kingu with her monstrous children, her magical Tablets, her divine body, but not her Heart. Her Heart belonged to Apsu. She was love-stricken, and cared for nothing but revenge against the gods who had taken her husband from her. She risked her babes and her lover in battle, and lost everything. Marduk defeated Kingu and his demon horde. They were condemned for eternity and trapped behind the Gate to the Land of the Dead.”

  “I didn’t take you for a romantic, Longren,” Leif said.

  “I have hidden depths,” Longren said. “True power resides not in brains or brawn, but in the heart. Because Tiamat failed to give Kingu hers, he didn’t have enough power to overthrow the gods. He was thwarted in love, thwarted in power, and thwarted in victory. He has an ax to grind, and an eternity to plot his revenge.”

  “And then Marduk slew Tiamat and butchered her for parts,” Grace said. “Her various pieces became parts of the night sky, the rivers, mountains, and so on. But her Heart? What did that become?”

  “This is where the missing piece I found fits in. Because Tiamat launched her war in the name of love, the gods devised a special punishment for her. She must never be reunited with her husband Apsu. They cursed her Heart to roam the world alone, outcast, and forever parted from her mate.”

  “But you said her Heart contained her powers,” Grace said.

  Longren pointed one long finger at her. “A point to the girl, professor.”

  “So Kingu is searching for the Heart of Tiamat, and if he finds it he inherits all of Tiamat’s powers?” Leif felt the responsibility crash over his shoulders like a tidal wave. Bad enough that Sven had unleashed a demigod bent on revenge. But with Tiamat’s powers, Kingu would become a full-fledged god. “He’s planning to wage war on the gods again if he finds it, isn’t he? Bloody hell.”

  “Marduk became the supreme god in Babylon, but his progeny are humans,” Grace said. “If Kingu wants revenge, he’s coming after everyone. The gods who cursed him, the monsters who failed him, the children of Marduk, the human who defeated him. No one will be safe.”

  “I’m not too worried.” Longren waved his hand airily.

  “So how do we find the Heart first?” Grace asked.

  Ye gods, she was magnificent. She assumed the problems of the world like a queen. No bellyaching. No thought for herself. Leif stared at her. The firelight played over her glossy black hair. The three cats preened beneath her hand. Her brows furrowed in worry, her shoulders tensed. She was only a small human woman, but he read determination in her silver eyes. She was going to find that Heart or die trying.

  Leif felt suddenly ashamed of his refusal to bear the Regent’s crown. While he’d been safely ensconced in his lab, she’d been out on the streets fighting for survival. Not her own survival, but that of strangers. She would claim it was just a job, but he could read the broadsheets as well as anyone. She fought when she didn’t have to. She fought when she didn’t want to. Beneath her prickly shields hid a generous, selfless spirit. And now she would take on a vengeful god without the slightest hesitation.

  He could learn so much from her. She deserved a braver, equally generous soul.

  Longren’s smile was resigned. “If Kingu is prowling around Seattle, there is a good chance he has tracked it to somewhere nearby, but hasn’t found it yet. The Heart could be moving.”

  “Are we looking for an actual beating heart, or something containing the Heart?” Grace asked. “An amulet of some sort? Like the Tablet of Destiny shard that Rudrick had?”

  “I hope not,” Longren said. “With the Tablet, the Heart could rewrite its own destiny. Bad enough if Kingu got hold of both. All he needs to resurrect his corporal form is the Tablet, the Heart to power it, and Tiamat’s essence—the salt water. Fortunately I think the Heart is trapped in a living thing. Think of it as the original wraith. It’s most likely sentient and could very well have its own agenda.”

  Chapter 11

  “Fuckin’ A,” Grace swore. “That’s all I need: a wraith with god-powers.”

  Asgard stood. He paced across the floor to the glass pane and watched the forgers hammering. He came too close to her. He smelled of wet male and cinnamon. She watched the muscles shift beneath his linen shirt, coiled and graceful like a predatory panther. Next to him, the forgers looked scrawny. He could pull off intimidating when he focused like this. Power and intent wrapped in a pretty package. His blond hair hung to his shoulders, long eyelashes framed his piercing eyes. But his planted boots, thick neck, and bulging forearms said he could break her if she stepped a hair out of place.

  He ran a hand across the stubble on his jaw. It was a nervous gesture that put centipedes in her belly. Norgard never doubted himself; he had been calm as a lake in winter. She’d thought all Drekar were like that. Asgard was a powerful, fire-breathing dragon. If he was nervous, there was no hope for the rest of them.

  She could delude herself only so far. The real problem was the humanness of it. She wanted to stick Asgard in her mental box labeled DREKAR with the rest, but he kept popping back out like some gods-damned jack-in-the-box, surprising her with un-Drekar-like behavior.

  She pried her eyes away. Everything about him screamed sex, yes please, MORE. And even if the outside hadn’t been gorgeous god-man, his brain wasn’t much to laugh about either.

  Asgard turned to her and crossed those muscled arms. “Have you felt any wraiths out of the ordinary in your patrols? How would you go about searching for a particular wraith?” And there he went asking for her opinion, like he thought she had something of value to add, like he cared. She felt one of the rivets in her iron defenses fall out. Her breath whistled in the hole left behind.

  “We need to track Kingu’s movements,” she said. “Make a map of rumored and confirmed sightings and all aptrgangr attacks. Track Jameson, Corbette, and your people too. See what info you can get from the Voice and send runners out for more.”

  “Runners?”

  “You know, the street brats who spy for the Regent.”

  His face clouded over. “Right. And where does one find these little spies?”

  “I can show you the lair, but it’s been six months. If you haven’t been running them, they’ll have found a new
game.” Street kids were resourceful. They hadn’t pledged themselves in Norgard’s service yet, so they were free to move on when Norgard’s funds dried up. She felt angry on their behalf. The Unraveling had been terrible, but they should have been able to count on food and shelter from the new Regent. They deserved better.

  “I know,” Asgard said, seeming to read her mind. Was her expression that obvious? “I’ll make it right.”

  She turned her attention to the cats in her lap and let her hair fall over her face. “Whatever.”

  “If Kingu was behind all three attacks today,” Asgard said, “it would appear that he’s casting a wide net to pinpoint who might have the Heart. Maybe he wanted to see if anyone would use the Heart in defense.”

  “I doubt Jameson has anyone strong enough to trap or control the Heart. But maybe it’s doing the controlling. Jameson is a couple marks short of a full rune. Marks is a possibility. He might swear he’s against the supernatural, but he’s collecting virgins for his congregation.” Grace turned to study the fire. In her lap, her hands curled into the cat’s fur. “There’s powerful magic in a sacrificed virginity. That’s how Rudrick brought down the Gate to the Land of the Dead.” Poor Lucia. The Kivati girl was lucky to be alive. Grace needed to ditch Asgard by nightfall in order to make her meeting with the kid. If Lucia wanted to learn to fight to reclaim some of her personal power, who was Grace to tell her no? “And then there’s Corbette. Probably our best bet for demonic possession. He’s been freaky since the Unraveling. I mean, he was always intimidating, but now even his subjects are wary of his sanity.” She thought of Johnny and Lucia’s shared look. Maybe she could get Lucia to tell her more during their first practice. It might be useful to have a contact on the inside of the impenetrable Kivati Hall.

  “Corbette already has two souls inside him. What’s one more?” Asgard gave a small, bitter laugh.

  Was he jealous? “Are you going to confront him about the Heart?”

  “Good Tesla, no. I might lack Zetian’s paranoia, but even I fear the Heart in the hands of my enemy. Corbette has no great love for Drekar or our truce. If he knew about the Heart, he wouldn’t hesitate to wipe us out. It’s probably the strongest case for him not possessing it, or at least not knowingly possessing it.”