Hearts of Darkness Read online

  “What are they? How can they exist? I saw them change. If I’m not delusional, that is—the jury is still out on that one. But seeing is believing, right? So I have to believe it, but . . . what the hell?” She watched him shrug painfully into his shirt, and her eyes caught on the exotic gold bands around his biceps. “What are those?”

  “None of your damned business.”

  Okay then. She pulled her jean jacket tighter. The cold was worse than in Philly. Not by degree, but by intent. It took on a life of its own, damp and insidious. It seeped into a person’s bones, and she could imagine it lingering there until a body rotted from the inside out. “Let’s humor each other. Let’s say you’re telling the truth. So tell me what I’m up against. Who are those men? How are mythic monsters flying around Seattle, and it hasn’t made the news?”

  He studied her for a long moment. “Who’s gonna believe it?”

  “But with camera phones and the Internet—”

  “You can’t capture the supernatural on camera, any more than you can measure the Aether.” At her blank look he sighed and glanced out to sea. He ran a hand unconsciously over his bruised ribs. Finally, he turned back to her. “Okay, I’ll bite. Rudrick and his clowns are Kivati shape-shifters. Those stories about Crow, Raven, Thunderbird, and Wolf are all based on the Kivati. Ancient humans worshipped them as semi-deities, because the Kivati protected them from the Unktehila.”

  “Unka-what?”

  “Dragons. It’s what the local people called them. You’ll hear Drekar now. Old Norse.”

  “Dragons,” she repeated. Desi would have been thrilled. For a girl dubbed “the Chatterbox” in school, she sure had kept a closed lid on this secret. They weren’t supposed to have secrets, not from each other. It had always been the two of them against the world. “Giant birds are easier to believe. I’ve seen unexplainable things in medicine, but this is huge.”

  He shrugged. “Humans. If you can’t see it, it doesn’t exist.”

  Guilty as charged. She explained away things that seemed impossible. She wanted to do the same to this, but those birds—she couldn’t forget them. They were burned into her retinas.

  “So let’s make sure I have this right: Rudrick and company are shape-shifters who are saving humanity from modern-day dragons? But I’m human—why would they threaten me? I’m really struggling here.”

  “You’re right. Sounds stupid. Forget it.” With brisk efficiency, Hart loaded the pile of weapons back into his pockets.

  “I didn’t mean that.” He was clamming up again. She had so many questions. “Desi had a symbol carved into her wrist—”

  “A Norse rune.”

  “I thought you were unconscious.”

  “Faking it.”

  “Who would do that to her?”

  He picked up the holster and slipped the leather straps over his broad shoulders, wincing briefly as the straps dug into his wounds. It must hurt a lot more than he let on. “That’s the question, isn’t it?”

  “Do you think Desi’s key and the necklace are the same thing?”

  “Do you?”

  She fought to rein in her temper. “Look. I’m sorry I’m having trouble understanding this whole story, but I’m trying. Can’t you share any information with me? Rudrick—whatever he is—gave us three days to find the key. We’re on the same side. We need to work together.”

  He fingered the gun strapped to his waist. He didn’t need the weapon to be intimidating. Didn’t need the bruises or the cut at his temple to proclaim to the world he was a fighter. Violence flickered in his eyes. Every self-preserving instinct she had screamed, Run. Run fast and run hard. But she couldn’t. She had to find out what had happened to Desi.

  She remembered her little sister at eight, hair pulled back in a dozen mismatched braids, an endless parade of scrapes on her knees and hands, inquisitive eyes straining to take in the world all at once. While playing hide-and-seek in sprawling Fairmount Park, Desi strayed too far and got lost. A late-summer storm hit, and Kayla searched the forest through a wicked downpour, at times fording knee-high water. Hours later, she found Desi shivering under a wilting cardboard box in the deep underbrush, teeth chattering, raindrops dripping from all those braids, big eyes full of relief.

  “You came,” Desi said as Kayla pulled her from the soggy cardboard.

  “Always,” Kayla promised. She stuck to it, no matter how much trouble Desi found herself in. Kayla was always there to dig her out.

  Until now. She’d failed her baby sister. There was no way in hell she could leave Seattle without knowing why.

  “You owe me one,” Kayla told Hart. “Tell me what you know.”

  He ran a hand through the white patch in his unruly dark hair, letting the silence lengthen. She forced herself to look him in the eye. Finally he spoke, “The necklace could be a key. I don’t know, but it’s a good guess. I’ll ask my boss—”

  “Who is?”

  “A businessman.” His eyes slid to the side. “He owns a tea house.”

  “And?” She motioned for him to elaborate.

  “And . . . he’s a politician. And patron of the arts. Respected civic leader.” The mocking curve to Hart’s lip said he didn’t think much of his boss’s fine reputation. He shrugged into his thick jacket. The light rain beaded on his long eyelashes. “Look, your sister made some bad friends. Forget the Kivati, the Drekar are worse. They eat souls. Stay away from them. Stay away from my boss. Just get out of town.”

  “Thanks for the heads-up, but—”

  “There’s nothing I can say to convince you to leave, is there?”

  “Nope.”

  “Hell.” He took off down the hill, holding his left arm tightly against his side. “I tried.”

  “I consider myself warned, so you can clear your conscience,” she called, hurrying to catch up. He might not need her, but she, unfortunately, needed him. He was her only guide in this crazy place. “Maybe Desi left more clues in her apartment. We should check there, then track down her friends and professors at the university. Then, well, your boss probably knows something.” She paused to note his injured stance. “But if you’ve got a broken rib, first stop should be the hospital.”

  He shook his head. “No hospitals. I’m fine.”

  “You’re hurt. I can help.”

  The look he shot her was incredulous, and a little angry. “Forget what I said before—you are crazy. You know that?”

  She got the feeling offers of help, in his experience, were either nonexistent or plagued with conditions. “She’s my sister. I’d do anything for her. Can’t you understand that?”

  “No. And you can’t trust me.” He seemed deadly serious.

  Of course not. The day she trusted a stranger who carried a gun was the day she’d ice-skate in hell. But she didn’t have a choice. She didn’t know Seattle. She didn’t know about Thunderbirds and dragons and things that went bump in the night. She didn’t know what the mysterious necklace looked like. Where was she going to find another person who did? Rudrick was out of the question. She had to find Desi’s key. Hart was her only hope.

  “But you can trust me,” she said. It would have to be enough.

  Emory Corbette narrowed his eyes at the Thunderbird general who sat across from him in the silver steam car. “But would Norgard let him go?”

  “None of the Regent’s operatives have lived long enough to get this close.” Like Corbette, Jace Raiden wore a sharp three-piece suit and heavy wool duster. Though younger than Corbette by a century, Jace and his brother, Kai, had proved themselves in the war with the Drekar. Strong physically, emotionally, and magically, they had risen quickly through the ranks, becoming the Raven Lord’s trusted advisers and each a leader of one of the four Kivati Houses. Every man, woman, and child had a job and a place within the hierarchy of their House. Each House contained a balance of warriors, craftsmen, and strong Aether workers. If anything should happen to him, Corbette trusted his Thunderbirds to take control of their Houses an
d carry on the fight. The Kivati would not fall apart. Not like last time.

  “Unbound, the werewolf will be even less stable,” Jace said. “Do you want to reinstate the kill order?”

  Corbette’s gaze shifted to the young blond woman to his right, but his fiancée stared out the rain-streaked window, oblivious to their conversation. She watched the short-lived humans scurrying through the haunted downtown streets. What could they possibly have that she wanted? He turned back to Jace. “No, there are too few of us left. We can’t afford the mistakes of the past.”

  His joke of a father had traded Kivati lands and their sacred duty to protect the Gate for a nickel of gin and a pair of twos. Under his watch, the blood had been diluted. Their ancient enemies—the Drekar—had moved in. The Kivati had been scattered like grain beneath a scythe. A territory that once stretched from northern California to Alaska was now split into small, disparate enclaves in and around the Cascade Mountains. Worse, under his father’s rule the Gate that separated the worlds had been cursed and cracked. How much longer could it hold?

  Corbette would wrest his people back from the brink. No half-mad Wolf would get in his way. “Every man has a weakness.” He didn’t look at Lucia, but he was keenly aware of her delicate fragrance floating through the trapped confines of the car. Orchids, he thought. A fragile bloom, suitable to her elegant beauty but not to the steel-spined leader she must become if she were to be his mate. “We must find his.”

  Jace’s nostrils flared. He favored direct attack over the subtle manipulation of pawns on the game board.

  “The Wolf is Kivati. He is blood. Some thread of honor must lie at his core, however decrepit it has become.” Corbette’s anger was a living thing, heating the air of the car. With effort, he restrained it, before Lucia saw in his eyes the iridescent purple light of a killing edge.

  She wasn’t paying attention. Her narrow upturned nose hovered next to the glass. Her gloved hands were clasped tightly in the folds of her skirt. He glanced out her window to see what had put the wrinkle in her elegant brow. “Penny for your thoughts, Lady Lucia?”

  Lucia started, as if she had forgotten he was sitting next to her, though the crisp sleeve of his coal-black suit brushed the edge of her navy sailing gown. It ticked him off. He certainly hadn’t forgotten her. The corset pushed up her small perfect breasts. Lace covered them just enough to be proper, but allowed a tantalizing hint of curve and cleavage beneath.

  “Forgive me, my lord.” She tucked an errant blond curl behind her ear. “My thoughts wandered.”

  Buttons ran from her slender waist up to a high lace neck. In his mind he slipped them free, one by one, to expose her alabaster skin. Damn propriety, the animal in him growled. But the man knew his tenuous hold on his people and his world was a wing tip away from chaos. He couldn’t afford to let down his guard. In a month he could slip those buttons free and flip up her skirts as he liked. Thirty long days. Patience might kill him.

  “You seem fascinated by the humans,” Jace commented.

  She blushed. “Just wondering why they can’t feel the Land of the Dead hovering all around us. The Aether is so . . . alive, but they insist it doesn’t exist. I don’t get it.”

  The Aether was a weightless liquid that filled space, allowing for the propagation of light, electricity, and magic. It separated the worlds and wove the fabric of time. Human scientists from Newton to Einstein had accepted it in one form or another, but more recent theorists had decided the concept was “unnecessary” to explain their measured phenomena. Their brains were too narrow-minded to envision Aether in its entirety. It required an acceptance of the divine, and to humans, faith and science were oil and water.

  “Self-deluding idiots,” Jace muttered.

  “You’re more sensitive than most,” Corbette told Lucia. Sensitive, but lacking the ability to manipulate the Aether like she should. He could feel the power inside her, trapped like a hive of angry bees. So much potential. What would it take to unleash it? He would enjoy finding out. After they were wed.

  “But solar flares—I just don’t think they’re a strong enough explanation for the electricity winking out here and there. Some of them see ghosts. Surely some of them must know the truth?” she asked.

  “You expect too much from humans.”

  “Besides, solar storms do take out satellites, radio communications, and power grids,” Jace said. “It happens in other cities around the world. It’s not too unbelievable.”

  “More believable than ghosts?” she asked.

  Jace snorted.

  “What rational human believes in ghosts?” Corbette gave a half smile. “I can’t explain the stupidity of—” He broke off as he felt the subtle tap of wings against the iron bulwark of his mind. Reaching out across the Aether, he located the crow flying above them and connected to the bird’s consciousness. The vision slid into his mind as if he were seeing it himself, the focus clear and bright, but the edges murky. A city street appeared below him, and he knew the crow had watched the scene from a wire overhead. He recognized the sculpture park with its monument to lifeless art, the twisted metal trees and bloated technological instruments standing testament to the barren wasteland of modern imagination.

  Below him, Mayor White stood grinning in front of a giant boring machine. The metal blades glistened in the flashes from the press. White waved to the crowd and cut a crimson ribbon in front of the machine. A bead of sweat slipped over his temple. His gaze flicked to the crows overhead, and something ugly flashed over his face.

  So. The poor fool had finally done it. After months of courting both sides, the profit-hungry mayor had thrown in his lot with Norgard and his hell-bred kin. Going behind the back of the Kivati-controlled city council, White had approved that idiotic and dangerous drilling project. He assumed that Norgard would return his loyalty. Maybe for a time. As long as he played the fool, Norgard would keep his wallet heavy.

  The project would build a light rail tunnel deep beneath the city streets from Ballard to Redmond, passing through downtown. White claimed light rail was the green solution to the city’s traffic woes, but it conveniently connected Norgard’s main bases of operation. He claimed burying the line prevented a costly land grab; the economic and environmental benefits outweighed the potential disruption of historical and religious artifacts hidden in the earth. Corbette seriously doubted Norgard had any interest in saving the environment. There was another reason the Drekar Regent wanted to dig through the churned bones of Kivati ancestors and into the secret lair of the Spider.

  What is your plan, Norgard? Corbette wondered. He let the vision go as the drill came roaring to life. Lucia’s anxious face clicked back into place in his sight.

  “Another attack?” she asked.

  “No. White has started digging his tunnel.”

  “Into her caves?” Lucia whispered, both afraid and awed by the ancient being that inhabited that sacred earth. Corbette had been a child when the Spider had last prophesied the fate of the race. Now, after a lifetime of waiting, the subject of that prophecy sat in front of him, her blue eyes solemn, elegance and innocence wrapped around every last square inch of her lovely body. Even her name seemed perfect for her role: Lucia, light bearer. Lucia, harbinger of destiny.

  “Don’t let it worry you,” he said. There would be blood tonight, he would see to it. “But I’m sorry.” He spoke the words even though Lucia knew them by heart. “I must take a rain check on our sailing trip.”

  Something flashed over her porcelain features—relief or disappointment, he didn’t know. He didn’t have time to find out.

  “Jace, call a meeting.”

  “Kai—?”

  “Fill your brother in on the situation. Norgard thinks he’s pulled one over on us. We need to move fast while he’s busy gloating.”

  “There’s his assembly plant in Kent—”

  “Not now,” he said. Lucia didn’t seem like she was listening, but he didn’t want death weighing on her conscience. What
ever Drekar target they chose, there would be human casualties.

  He ordered the driver to take them home. The familiar weight of responsibility adjusted itself on his broad shoulders. He reminded himself that he was doing this for Lucia so that their future children could grow up in a world free from Drekar violence and human stupidity.

  A world they could rule in peace.

  Hanging half out of the driver’s side door, Hart push-started his old diesel Mercedes down the steep hill toward the churning sea below. He pulled himself into the moving car and released the clutch. The engine turned, sputtering like an ancient crone, and coughed to life.

  Kayla sat in the passenger seat. Her fingers were white-knuckled on the armrests. “What’s wrong with your car?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with it.” It was half-truth. His car drove fine, as long as there were no ghosts around. This close to the morgue, electricity rarely worked. Humans had a lot of explanations for the blackouts. The city blamed lack of funds for their neglected power grid. Scientists blamed an abnormal patch in the earth’s magnetic field that triggered solar storms, which in turn caused electromagnetic pulses that fried electrical circuits. Conspiracy theorists blamed the government’s nuclear bomb testing over Puget Sound, which also caused EMP. They were partially right—EMP was to blame, but most humans would never accept that ghosts were the cause. The few “crazies” who tried to investigate the paranormal in Seattle quickly learned to keep their yaps shut.

  Whatever the imagined cause, Seattleites—human and nonhuman alike—had learned to cope with the electricity problem. They rode bikes and drove old diesels. Environmental, yes, but practical too. With a diesel, he could start his engine by running his car downhill; no electric spark required. If he parked on the flat, he was screwed. Fortunately, downtown was one steep hill after another. The entire city stank of French fries because of all the homemade biodiesel. Importing companies made fast money shipping mechanical tools from other cities’ antique shops. Hand-push lawn mowers, vintage rotary egg beaters, and typewriters were a real hit.