The Talon & the Blade Read online

  When she’d made her vow, she’d assumed one day memories would fade, no longer digging in the spaces between her ribs. Yet the one she wanted most to forget persisted. Before she could stop herself, it swallowed her whole.

  The unadorned walls fell away. The sunlight pouring in from the roofed window faded. The racks of practice weaponry, heavy bags, and dummies became a forest in winter.

  In the center, the burned-out homestead still steamed in the fresh snowfall. The bones of a few meager structures darkened as moisture hissed and popped against embers. The muddy yard, churned up by hooves and boots around the bodies facedown in the mud. She paced it end to end, grief rising with each step as her mind re-created the pillaging.

  When the thieves had come, the man could have holed up inside the cabin and picked them off with a rifle, or let them raid the stock and the garden and then move on. Instead, perhaps thinking himself the gunslinger his bride had taken him for in those early days, he had gone out to meet them. His body lay where they cut him down, clutching at revolvers that had been ripped from his hands after death.

  Even without turning the second body over, she recognized the slight figure in the plain calico dress. Takami, the stolen bride, Ana’s charge, and the closest thing she’d ever had to a friend, had been dragged out of the cabin. Even in death she clutched their baby to her chest. Had her cowherd-turned-gunslinger still been alive to watch her pleading for their lives? Did he see the pistol whipped across the delicate bones of her full face? Did he hear the two shots that had silenced her and the child forever?

  Ana’s last meager meal rose in her throat, forcing a path out of her body and into the mess of blood and slush. Her failure to keep Takami safe stained her with shame. Now the stain stretched over her soul. She spat bile and grief. When she could breathe again, she had one purpose left in this world. Vengeance.

  A century later, Ana closed her eyes, waiting for the vertigo of memory to pass and leave her in the present. She pressed the breath through her, focusing her attention on the sensation of its passage in and out of her body, letting it draw her from the void of fury and loss. She’d outlived her vengeance by a hundred years and now walked in a whole other world of power and codes beyond what mortals could understand. When she opened her eyes again, the room came back into focus as she sheathed her blades and came to a ready stance, hands fisted at her sides.

  She had the training room to herself these days. The only other time it saw action was when two of the other Aegis members had a score to settle. It was the safest place for an all-out grudge match: powerful wards enforced the walls and floor with extra strength. Their master would not have them tearing down the house in their efforts to kill each other.

  Ana was first of Raymond’s Aegis—for many years it had been just the two of them. The good old days, she mused. These days, they were four including her. Petr and Mitko came after, and it seemed their vow had included some language about keeping her on her toes, because they were determined to make her life miserable every chance they got. Then several whose names she could not remember because they had not survived long enough to be memorable. Finally a young street fighter from Brazil who defected from the Suramérican necromancer’s retinue and had enough sense of self-preservation to stay on her good side. The death of the fifth a decade ago still carved a hollow behind her breastbone if she allowed herself to linger on it.

  Busy leading the investigation of the attacks, she’d neglected her usual watch of Petr and Mitko. She made a mental note to be on alert for any of their shenanigans. They had designs on being Raymond’s first, though she doubted either smart enough to realize only one of them could serve the post even if it hadn’t been taken.

  Raymond’s summons broke her focus. The garden.

  On my way. She sheathed her blades, reset her topknot, and left the mat.

  The necromancer known as Raymond Nightfeather waited beside a pond surrounded by delicate maples and vibrant green bamboo. It had cost Ana a small fortune to construct and keep green in the dry Southern California hills. But after a century and a half as the first of Raymond’s Aegis, it was her fortune to spend.

  As a member of the Allegiance that had saved the world from the godswar, Raymond had claimed all of North America, more or less, for his territory. Aside from the few universal rules the Allegiance had established for mortals and god-blooded creatures, he handled what went on inside his borders according to his own sense of time and urgency.

  He stood on the small wooden walkway over the water, tossing pebbles of food to the gaping maws of koi surfacing beneath him. The six oldest, in shades of scarlet, yellow gold, emerald, and the great multicolored bekko she called Grandmother, gave her more pleasure than she would have ever imagined when she released them, small and timid, decades ago. More recently she’d acquired a few of the metallic scaled “ghosts” that most traditional collectors didn’t recognize as true nishikogoi because their blood was not pure. Fuck tradition.

  She stopped on the bridge beside Raymond, waiting in silence for longer than most mortals would have managed without fidgeting. She’d waited for this summons for days. She told herself she could wait a few more moments. In truth, she resented Raymond’s delay as much his refusal to tell her why he waited. They had a situation on their hands. One she would be handling if he hadn’t called her away from the investigation and kept her leashed at his side. It was her job, after all. Her purpose.

  The final insult—he’d sent out for help. And now, this silence.

  No lies, he’d promised long ago when she’d taken her vow, but there will be secrets.

  She’d taken the bargain anyway, traded her soul for almost-immortality, increased speed, strength, and the ability to see what mortals, and even most grace bloods, would not. She thought her sight, the greatest of the gifts he’d given her, would temper his need to keep secrets. She’d been new to bargaining with immortals, and a fool.

  “Our guest arrives in two hours.” He checked his watch. “I’d like you to be at the airport.”

  Necromancers held themselves apart, even from one another. It made the Allegiance so damn fragile and was why she feared it would only be a matter of time before it fell.

  As little as Ana liked him calling in the favor, she had to admit the necromancer Azrael had been the logical, best choice. Azrael’s adopted daughter, Lysippe, the first member of his Aegis, had history with Raymond. Recent history, as these things went. It had been over a century and Ana didn’t know how she felt about seeing the Amazon. If Azrael saw the request for help as an opportunity to gain intel on Raymond’s territory, sending a woman who knew him better than most would be wise.

  She tested the name out loud. “Lysippe?”

  The wind stirred around them, shaking the dark leaves on the trees. “I did not ask.”

  Ana’s fist closed and she kept her eyes on the swirling fish to keep herself from screaming. He didn’t ask.

  She was going straight back to the training room after this.

  The edge of Raymond’s mouth rose. “Choose to take it as a compliment, Ana. Whomever he sends, I trust you will be able to handle it and the task. Have a little faith.”

  Faith, she wanted to spit out. Faith was for fools and innocents. And she was neither.

  Azrael had the largest Aegis in the Allegiance—Ana hadn’t even begun to gather the proper intel on them all. Besides Lysippe, only one other had a reputation that preceded him—the Black Blade of Azrael.

  She’d seen Gregor Schwarz in Azrael’s great hall. A great lean shadow of man, severe as a honed edge without an ounce of expression on his pale face. She’d hardly believed him capable of the ruthlessness rumored to have been committed at his hands in Azrael’s name. And then those eyes had swept her, and the hollow iciness had raised the hairs on her arms.

  No way Azrael would part with his favored enforcer to fulfill a debt to Raymond. After all, he faced challenges from all sides of the Allegiance. Having the most powerful of his progeny as
cend to take over the Suramérican territory gave him distant relief. There were still six other necromancers, the most powerful in the world, keeping a close eye on him, his god-touched consort, and his unorthodox allies. Azrael could send someone expendable if he wanted to fulfill his debt to Raymond without risk to himself.

  That’s what she needed: someone who would get in her way and whom she would have to keep alive so that the necromancers could continue to play their delicate game of honor and alliances. Why couldn’t Raymond leave this to her?

  She made a mental note to put her undead analyst on collecting as much information about the rest of Azrael’s Aegis as was possible in the next two hours.

  “He’ll send Lysippe,” Raymond said. His mouth pulled sideways. “She knows me, after all. He’ll think it gives her an advantage.”

  At least the Amazon would be a known entity. She could handle herself if it came to a fight, and they had been friends, or at least comrades, before the mess with Raymond.

  She hoped for Lysippe’s sake she’d learned her lesson. Emotional connection was a human failing, one their kind would be wise to shed as necromancers did, as quickly as possible.

  Chapter Three

  “California, here I come.” Gregor adjusted his sunglasses as he stepped off the plane. The sun warmed his shoulders through the dark suit.

  In the distance, the main terminals for the international airport where most arrivals and departures were conducted shimmered in waves off the pavement. Perfectly spaced rows of palm trees marked the high fencing around buildings, and armed guards patrolled in the open. More than a few of them were warded, and he counted several minor necromancers among the patrols.

  But he wasn’t the average commercial passenger. There would be no customs or immigration for him. Come to think of it, forged papers aside, in his travels with Azrael he’d never been issued a passport.

  He walked the carpet laid from the base of the charter jet steps to the back door of the waiting limo. The porter moved his bags from the plane’s cargo area to the trunk.

  The driver held his door. His flat eyes and lack of respiration signaled an undead servant of a necromancer, known on the street as a zombie. This one had been stripped of humanity, leaving little more than an automaton. It didn’t even have enough personality left to greet him.

  Gregor had expected the limo to be empty and hesitated at the sight of the young Asian woman in artfully torn, loose-fitting jeans, red tennis shoes, and a designer jacket modeled after an old high school letterman. She reclined against the rear-facing seat. The door shut behind him.

  Her pale face angled toward him as he settled. Short dark hair swung against her cheeks. Round sunglasses kept her eyes—and gaze—a mystery. Her mouth pursed, full rosy lips shaped like a little bow. Definitely breathing, and he detected the faint pulse of her heartbeat steady at her throat. Within easy reach but not at the ready rested a pair of swords that he recognized by reputation. Not a young woman at all then.

  “Mr. Schwarz,” she said, a hint of humor in the honey-covered steel of her voice. “This is a surprise. Permit me to greet you in place of my master, who regrets he could not welcome you personally.”

  He’d spent the flight studying the briefing the head of intelligence had prepared for him. Ana Gozen. The first of Raymond’s Aegis, hers was the only consistent face among the North American necromancer’s avowed guards over the last hundred or so years. Others appeared and vanished—reports suggested she had killed more than one. The credit for the necromancer’s iron grip on the North American territory belonged to the woman known as the Nightfeather’s Talons.

  Gregor inclined his head. “My apologies. We crossed paths in Prague, but I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure of an introduction, Ms. Gozen.”

  The stillness in her body would never be confused with relaxation. He couldn’t read her. Not like this. Not without the eyes. The corner of her mouth dimpled, and he wished he could tip those sunglasses toward the edge of her nose without risking his limbs and, most likely, his head.

  The pressure between his shoulders increased as the blade began to take physical shape.

  Her nails, a sparkling French manicure tipped with black, danced along the short blade at her side in response. “We expected the Amazon.”

  “Lysippe was otherwise engaged.”

  Not that Lysippe hadn’t fought to come. But Azrael’s sudden flirtation with human emotion included a protective streak. Already chafing at being kept closer than she liked, Lysippe still wasn’t speaking to either of them over it. Madness.

  He snapped to attention. Did Ana lean toward him? She hadn’t moved, but he sensed the sudden engagement in her posture. Losing focus around Ana Gozen would be a mistake. Maybe his last one.

  Her lips stretched without showing teeth. “Then Lord Azrael has honored us with the presence of his first.”

  He leaned back in his seat, letting his smile ease into something more languorous. Us.

  Perhaps there was something to the rumor that she was not only the head of Raymond’s guard. It would not have been the first time a necromancer took a lover from their Aegis. There could be no betrayal from one who was bound to you for their immortality.

  The limo slid out of the airfield and into traffic, picking up speed. The route took them through the eastern edge of the thriving metropolis of downtown Los Angeles. Cities Allegiance necromancers chose for their seats often benefited faster and more from rebuilding after the war.

  He hardly recognized it from pictures of the city before the Allegiance had taken over the world and divided it among themselves. The fabled smoggy skies of the old days had been replaced by a robin’s-egg blue, thinly glazed with morning clouds. The noise of engines on the highway was replaced by a quiet rush of rubber on pavement and gently whirring electric motors. Like the rest of the Allegiance, Raymond had prohibited the use of fossil fuels for personal transportation. From here it was hard to imagine the ravaging North America had taken during the godswar.

  Throughout time, powerful entities often revealed themselves to humans in such a way that they were worshipped and feared as gods. Claiming the bodies of mortals, they mixed with humans and animals, creating all manner of creatures called grace blooded for the power of the gods running through their veins. Necromancers and grace-blooded creatures had lived in the shadows since the dawn of time without revealing their existence.

  But mortals weren’t content to worship, and learning to communicate with their gods through physical movement led to the godswar. Using dancers to petition the gods, human countries destroyed rival economies, destroyed infrastructure, and brought civilization to the brink of collapse in a matter of weeks.

  The eight necromancers emerging from their shadowed existences stopped an apocalypse, but at a steep price—total authority. They left governments standing to administer familiar controls, but the real lines of possession were drawn between the Allegiance, and they settled into their seats and began to restore order.

  The images from that time—cites obliterated, forests turned to piles of matchsticks, scorched remains of fleeing humans—were as bad as anything he’d seen done at the hands of a necromancer. Sickened by humanity, Gregor lost any desire to protect it. The mortals had to be put in their place. This was what they did with the power of gods at their disposal. Disgust and rage had fueled him in those days.

  Even after decades of rebuilding, parts of the world were barrens created by catastrophic human weapons, godstrikes, or some combination of the two.

  “Is it true the East Coast is still in ruins?” Some perverse part of him needed confirmation that returning to the places he remembered would be impossible. Get it over with and out of your head now. Focus.

  Ana lifted a shoulder. “More or less. Though it’s too dangerous to enter some areas even for us. I hear Vanka faced the same.”

  “Some.” Gregor thought of the package Azrael had entrusted him with. “We have more thin places now.”

 
A gift, Azrael had said, something to get Raymond off his guard. See what it tells you.

  Azrael handed off the warded vial in the secure case. They’d escaped a collapsing mine in disputed territory with a flask full of the liquid in that vial. A liquid only possible due to a place sustaining deep or repeated godstrikes. A thin place.

  “I’ve heard of those,” she said. “The West Coast suffered less supernatural damage, though a few god-driven earthquakes and a tsunami took a toll farther north. You’ll see some of the damage.”

  Past Santa Monica and north on 405, the limo wove up into the hills where dense population gave way to sprawling estates. Gregor’s senses registered the presence of a powerful necromancer even before they turned off the main road onto the secured driveway of a property that dominated the hill.

  He expected something older Hollywood with echoes of European, or at least Spanish, style. But the sprawling compound of timber, glass, and cement had a Pacific Northwest sensibility applied to this sunnier, drier locale. The sharp lines and steep angles of the mansion and surrounding buildings were fresh from a modern architectural magazine.

  Raymond and Azrael had different approaches to their status. Azrael lived in the heart of his city with a minimal number of undead staff. In this distant compound, a dozen guards—undead—waited at the gate that rolled aside. Gregor sensed twice as many stationed about the compound.

  The limo drew to a stop at the top of the horseshoe drive. He stepped out when the door opened, moving aside as Ana followed him. He disliked having her at his back.