Hearts of Shadow (Deadglass #2) Page 4

  The dragon found her hiding spot no problem. He nosed away the Dumpster. Metal screeched across the pavement. An ancient being blocked the sky. His eyes focused on her: intelligent, powerful, curious. Scales rippled down a sinuous body. Strangely and terribly beautiful, like the sharp edge between pleasure and pain. It hurt her eyes to look at him. She wanted to stroke her hand across that long muzzle. She wanted to put her hand in the beast’s mouth.

  Freya’s madness, she tempted fate. Again and again. One of these days some monster would bite her hand clean off. But that adrenaline rush drew her, lit her up like a tree at Christmas. When a girl was death’s handmaiden, sometimes all she craved was to feel shockingly alive.

  She squeezed her eyes shut against the temptation. The dragon mewed and drew nearer, butting her side like some great, demonic puppy. Pain shot through her rib, and she cried out. The dragon hissed. Cinnamon filled the air. His sharp teeth snatched her by the leg and pulled her out.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she yelled. “Let me go! Let me—oof!”

  The dragon set her down gently, and she leaned her cheek against the cold brick ground, breathing heavily and waiting for the world to stop spinning. She was going to have a fucking headache when she woke up. Heat and light flickered behind her closed eyelids. She braced herself. She could imagine the Turn, because she’d seen it before; the scales shattering into sprinkles of light; the giant limbs shrinking to human form; the godlike naked physique bathed in a golden glow. Curse and thank the gods.

  Norgard had always waited a beat, glorifying in his nudity, aware that it made Grace uncomfortable. She couldn’t say the exact moment when her excitement and hero worship had given way to anxiety. He had known her dark secret. Her shame. She couldn’t hide her fascination with the dragon’s wicked beauty.

  Most people thought the Drekar’s monster form was most dangerous, but they were wrong. When faced with a twenty-foot-tall fire-breathing dragon, survival mode kicked in. A sane person didn’t try to fight a dragon. A sane person ran and lived to fight another day.

  The human Drekar form, on the other hand, was much more subtle. It specialized in cunning and deception. It was just as dangerous to her, but her primal instincts didn’t get her feet moving first thing. The Drekar’s looks made the sun stop in its orbit to get a good look. The ardor-inducing pheromones made a person want to rub up against it. It destroyed all reason.

  They were gods among men; she didn’t know how anyone mistook them for humans. Beautiful, terrible, erotic. She’d been sucked in when she was just a naïve sixteen-year-old, and she hated to admit, but they still had the power to turn her knees to jelly.

  “It’s a trick,” she reminded herself.

  Leif Asgard was no different. She kept her eyes averted. She would not let him affect her.

  “What in Tiamat’s name do you think you’re doing?” he asked, voice deep with smoke and Aether.

  Irritation flittered through her brain—she didn’t want help—but reality came back as her left side throbbed around her busted rib. Steeling her face, she scrambled to a sitting position. The brick wall at her back steadied her.

  He cast her a cursory glance and then bent over the fallen aptrgangr, Bert, with his angry red runes burned into his flesh. Asgard’s eyebrows lifted as he studied her marks. “Who taught you this?”

  “Who do you think?”

  “You need to burn the body, or it could come back.”

  “Thank you, Captain Obvious.”

  His glance cut through her. His eyes were emerald green. So mesmerizing, she could lose herself inside them, if the pupils weren’t currently slit in anger. It popped the illusion that he was human.

  Norgard would have punished her for failing a mission like this. Not immediately. He would wait, letting the tension curl in her gut until she wanted to beg him to do it already. The wait was worse than the punishment. Nothing so simple as a beating. Psychological games were his specialty.

  Asgard ticked his fingers against his thigh. A curl of smoke drifted from his nostrils. She could think of a hundred reactions he might be contemplating, but—like his brother—not one flickered across his inhumanly beautiful face.

  She wanted to push him. To make him snap that perfect composure.

  With a nod, he decided. He turned to the aptrgangr body. His jaw dropped—unhinged farther than any human jaw could—and breathed the magic of his kind. A burst of flame lit the alley, controlled yet chaotic, shot through with gold and amber. Her shaking limbs curled toward the heat. She hadn’t realized she was cold.

  The body sizzled and the scent of burning meat filled the air. It bloomed and died in seconds. Even the bones melted, leaving a man-sized print charred into the brick.

  The fire left starbursts in her eyes, and when they cleared, the Drekar Regent was leaning over her. His green eyes swept her body, cataloging her injuries, memorizing her weaknesses.

  “I’m fine.” She struggled to rise, pushing against the wall behind her so that it took her weight. Somehow she found herself on the ground again. Crap.

  A muscle twitched in his jaw. “I can see that.”

  “Just . . . resting.”

  He reached out, and she winced. His hand froze an inch from her cheek. His eyebrows rose a fraction. Damn, damn, damn. She usually had a better grip on herself. Never show weakness.

  Slowly, he traced the outline of an old bruise along her jaw. His fingers trailed heat along her sensitive skin.

  She couldn’t stop the shiver that took her. “Cold,” she explained.

  “Hmm,” he hummed, noncommittal. His hand dropped. “Those are old bruises. You seem intelligent. How did you get in this situation?” He caught her as she made a nosedive.

  Grace started to panic at his large hands on her arm and waist. Her breath clogged in the cotton of her throat. Her pulse pounded. Sweat broke along her palms. This was nothing she hadn’t survived before. She fought for calm.

  “How long have you gone unhealed?” Propping her against the wall again, he crouched in front of her. He was naked. A new shiver wracked her, but not from the cold. Smooth, golden skin covered his muscled forearm. He smelled of cinnamon and something darker, like hot mulled brandy. Before she realized what she was doing, she found herself leaning into that scent.

  No, no, no. His musk was messing with her head. She would not be an easy target. “Won’t sleep with you.”

  Even Norgard wouldn’t heal her in an alley. He had standards.

  Asgard blinked. His shoulders shook. “Darling, I’m not desperate enough that roadkill looks remotely appealing. I doubt you’ve got enough life left in you for a good kiss, let alone a good shagging.”

  “Doesn’t work if you don’t,” she mumbled. “Blood’s not enough.”

  He was silent for a long moment. “You need to be healed.” He Turned one finger to claw and sliced the vein in his right elbow. She felt his strong hands pulling her from the wall.

  It was so easy to fall away from the cold brick into his warm embrace, but she fought it anyway. Her lips closed on his skin, and she couldn’t help the moan that escaped her when her tongue found his hot rush of blood.

  Her eyelids were too heavy to keep open. She let them close. She was going to have a killer heartache when she woke up.

  Chapter 3

  Leif cradled the semiconscious woman in his arms and forced blood into her mouth. Tiamat damn Sven to the bottom circle of hell. He watched her bruises fade as his healing blood did its magic. First the old ones disappeared. Then the new bruises turned purple, then black, then faded back into her clear olive skin. Beneath his fingers, her rib cage knit back together.

  She was a tiny thing. What did she think she was doing, fighting those who walked after death? Was she suicidal? He didn’t know the specifics of the blood debt, but he didn’t think death was a way out. She had obviously been trained to fight. He’d seen that much in the alley before he’d Turned. Trained to fight and carve runes and who knew wh
at else. Sent out to do battle with the damned and then? What then had Sven demanded of her? Did he heal his little aptrgangr killer so that she could work again?

  No. His brother had worked her over so that she believed his blood wouldn’t heal her if she didn’t give him her body and soul too. A handy lie that would kill her a little at a time as surely as a cancer.

  What wouldn’t Sven stoop to?

  Leif let out a long breath and wiped the smear of blood from the girl’s lips with the back of his hand. She couldn’t be much more than twenty, but her eyes were hard. She hated him. He was unused to that look from a human woman. Usually they laughed, flirted, and tried desperately to find a way into his pants.

  He ran his hands over her lithe body, trying to be impersonal. He had no doubt that his blood would heal her, but as a scientist he knew the importance of double-checking his experiments. Ah, the lies he told himself! He gave a rueful smile.

  She was surprisingly muscular for someone so small. He could easily crush her small bones in his claws. Her features displayed a mixed lineage. Korean, perhaps, and Italian. Her blue-black hair hung loose, matted now with dirt and blood. The long hair was impractical, given that everything else had been chosen for stealth. Her faded black jeans clung to her skinny waist. They were ripped and slashed, but not for fashion, and worn almost threadbare. A sturdy leather corset protected her torso. Material that had once been alive provided the best protection in the post-Unraveling world. It held an Aether residue of its life.

  Her black hooded jacket over the top added concealment, but it wasn’t warm enough for fall. He would have to fix that. Her heavy black boots had steel toes. A sheaf for her knife hung from her leather belt and leather braces protected her wrists. In her pockets he found Thor’s hammer, needles, and a running iron. Curious.

  Aether swirled around her, almost like she was drawing it to her. When he pulled back the jacket, he found a line of runes poking out of her corset top. That could explain the strangeness. Leif had never taken much stock in the old runes, but this Walker believed—her skin was a mass of blue and red ink.

  He reached to undo the corset and see more, but a large black and white monster jumped out of the shadows and scratched him across the hand.

  “Bloody hell!” But it was just a cat. He laughed at himself.

  The thing glared at him, obviously ready to defend its mistress again.

  “I was looking in the name of science,” he told it.

  The cat was not impressed. It twitched its mustache. Leif gathered the girl into his arms and stood. Sven had left this strange, tattooed blood slave in his care. Sven was mad. What terrible plot did she fit into? He had to keep a close eye on her until he figured it out.

  “After you,” he told the cat. At the mouth of the alley he turned back and breathed fire through the narrow lane. Rubbish caught. Branches and fallen boards snapped and popped. Brick heated as the fire grew. Flame took the bodies, one by one, setting them free. He said a small prayer for whatever gods they worshipped to look after their spirits on their way through the Gate.

  The smell of burning meat followed him out.

  Kingu swept through the street in Pioneer Square on the back of a harsh north wind, his wraith body ethereal but vast. Tendrils of his power snaked down the narrow brick alleys, searching for his quarry. It had been here recently. He could feel the dark, thrumming essence, the ancient, rich power beating to the rhythm of the earth’s core. It called to him, but he was too late. This time.

  After an eternity of captivity in the Land of the Dead, where he’d been caged since the usurper Marduk had slain his army, stolen his Tablets, and cast him out of Babylon, Kingu should be more patient. His diversion back to Babylon had been a mistake. He’d lost precious time rejuvenating himself in the salt waters, and when he’d finally arrived, nothing remained of the old empire but sun and sand.

  His dreams brought him back to the place of his escape. His quarry was here, waiting for him, trapped like he had been. He caught flashes of it now and then. Patience, patience, my love.

  He blew through the smoldering alley and out the other side, into the merry glow of the torches. A small temple to Ishtar, built of flimsy wood, not like the great stone gardens that the goddess was used to, stood gaudily in pinks and reds. The Aether flowed around it, beckoning him. Silly little bells thought to keep him out. He laughed and knocked them down, a sudden gust of wind and ill will. His wraiths followed in his coattails. They clattered the bones of the fence and pulled the shutters off the windows. Their war song screeched through the dark.

  Inside the Priestesses trembled, their bare flesh nipping in the sudden chill, their eyes wide, mouths thin and trembling. Not one of them drew her spear.

  Kingu peered in the windows, and ice climbed over the windowpane. He didn’t see any weapons at all. Men, coats off, trousers down. Women, lace-covered, fingers plucking harps and flutes, soft and round and rosy-cheeked.

  Sacred Courtesans, all of them. Where were the warrior maidens? These humans sought to worship only one side of Ishtar.

  Kingu laughed, and the iced window cracked, shattering the room with broken glass. Crying out, the humans drew back.

  Still, not one of them went for their weapons. Some of the menfolk tried to protect the shivering harlots. It should have been the other way around. Ishtar, if she still walked the mortal world, would be enraged, and when Ishtar was enraged, the underworld and all its denizens broke loose.

  Feeling generous, Kingu decided to teach them a lesson on her behalf. He led his wraiths through the house, shattering the silly china baubles and delicate fripperies that had no place in a temple of Ishtar. Silken drapes and velvet curtains ripped from their moorings. Cabinets and poster beds crashed against ceilings like so much kindling. Shrieks filled the house, an eager melody to the percussion of his destruction.

  He left the humans alive. Swooping out the now-empty door frame, he led his wraiths into the darkness. He was hungry. On another street, three human soldiers patrolled. Nothing else moved, but the wind and the ash and the sharp waves splashing against the seawall. He paused, studying their build and swagger. One laughed. The other grinned. Unaware of their surroundings. The third lifted his barreled weapon to sweep the shadows. Young and vital, wary but not weathered. No grit, no stamina, no cruelty. None had the warrior spirit he needed. The humans of this strange new world were made of river-bottom mud. He needed hard mountain rock and the unflinching drive of the desert sand.

  Tiamat would send him what he needed. Until then, he would collect for his army.

  Calling his wraiths to follow, he swooped down to the three humans in the street. Sensing, but not seeing him, they scattered, not realizing that he inhabited the air all around, cocooning them in his dark embrace. The first man, sandy hair, youthful face lacking the wrinkles of maturity, the yellow skin a reminder of scurvy, searched blindly through the fog. Kingu let him see. He reared up, revealing his true form, three demonic heads snapping, three long rows of razor teeth, sharp scales glittering over heavily muscled haunches, spiked tail whipping out to shatter the iron poles of torchlights along the street.

  The man froze, terror etched in every feature. His heart stuttered, tripping over itself, blood coursing in intermittent bursts until he choked on his own fear. So weak.

  It was a simple thing to make him strong.

  Kingu bent down and sealed his mouth over the man’s lips. He breathed out, washing the man with his essence. Plucking a wraith out of the Aether, Kingu shoved it down the helpless man’s throat. The battle was short. Taking over, the wraith looked out of the man’s eyes with cunning and bloodthirsty vengeance. Satisfied, Kingu turned to the other two.

  His army grew by three men that day. More hounds on the scent, his quarry was within his grasp. Let the trumpets blare. The hunt was on.

  The nightmare took her like it always did. First the cold. The numb pain in her legs and arms. She couldn’t move much, in the way of dreams, like she was trying
to crawl through chest-high mud. Next came the panic. She needed to move.

  And then the smell of the Underground hit. The mold. The damp. Like someone’s flooded basement had been sealed shut and left to rot for a century. The pervasive iron.

  In the dream, Grace Mercer was dying. She had done a lot of stupid things in her short twenty years on earth, but this last one had taken the cake. Rushing helter-skelter into a dark, abandoned building was not something she usually would have done without casing the place, or at least letting Bear sniff the perimeter for her. But she had seen the little girl disappear through that rusted door and had acted without thinking. She had to save the kid. She hadn’t seen it coming. That little girl hadn’t been more than six or seven, for Freya’s sake. The picture of innocence. Golden curls bouncing. Striped rainbow tights under a green corduroy jumper. Saddle shoes on her feet.

  And even though it had happened a long time ago, she still felt the sick foot in her gut at the memory of that child.

  She’d followed the girl into that dark structure at a dead run, only to realize—far too late—it was a trap. A beam fell, knocking her to the floor with a blow to the head. She’d called out to the little girl and watched, horror stricken, as the child turned and fixed her with those empty wraith-filled eyes. When was the last time Grace had encountered an aptrgangr child? They were innocent, bodies and souls hale and hearty, unwearied by years of heartache and misery. It was a natural defense against possession.

  Something else had jumped her then, two hell-spawned creatures that stalked the night. The head injury destroyed her sense of balance. It was a miracle she’d made it out and dragged herself this far.

  The rotting beams of the tunnel floor sent splinters into her grasping fingers. She just had to make it to the first trip wire.