Death's Dancer Read online

  “Miss Vogel.” He stopped with military precision and folded at the waist in a courtly gesture. “I am Gregor, head of security.”

  She recognized the German accent, but only because after almost twenty years of practice, her father had never quite been able to shake the slight hint of his origin. This man’s accent was just as faint.

  The smirk on his face was anything but courtly. It was knowing and sensual, with lips no man should have a right to and eyes an electric shade of blue. Pale skin swept over refined cheekbones into cropped black hair.

  His smirk tilted the slightest bit under her scrutiny. She sealed her mouth shut. At the Academy, she trained among some of the most attractive human specimens in the world. Isela was not about to be cowed by this one’s looks.

  “I understand this is a matter of some urgency,” she spoke in German, keeping her tone brisk and formal.

  Her mother often joked it was a good thing her father also spoke Italian, for all the romance of his native tongue.

  “At your pleasure, Fräulein,” he responded in kind. Gregor turned. “You will follow me.”

  Her mother was wrong; it was possible for German to sound sexy as hell.

  Without eye contact, Isela found it was much easier to breathe. And concentrate. He wasn’t a zom— an undead, but he wasn’t quite human either. For one thing, he was breathing. But his unironic use of the German title given to young women made him seem generations older than his appearance.

  Necromancers and their courts were more secretive than any government agency had ever been. What little anyone knew was crafted by the PR teams a few bothered to employ. Who knew what other creatures they were capable of creating or manipulating.

  They moved through the largest of the three courtyards, awash in shadows cast by the enclosed cathedral and the falling darkness. The imposing exterior of St. Vitus loomed over them in all of its neo-Gothic glory.

  Isela didn’t realize she had slowed down until her guide paused a few steps ahead. He angled his head toward her.

  “The cathedral has been closed for some time,” he stated. “Restoration.”

  “I’ve just. . . never seen it so close,” she uttered finally, unable to hide her awe.

  She didn’t assume a necromancer had much interest in a church even if it was the grandest in all of Prague. However, she’d heard stories and seen old pictures of the stained-glass windows by Mucha and Svabinsky. She longed to see the light shining through them.

  Isela’s guide paused, sparing the cathedral a glance, before giving a disinterested shrug. He picked up the pace. “If you please.”

  She hurried after him.

  “St. George’s Basilica, to your left,” her guide offered after a moment. “Also a former convent.”

  She made a thoughtful sound, but her eyes were on the statue of the saint impaling the dragon coiled below his mount’s hooves. “Has it all been restored?”

  “Of course,” her guide said without pause.

  Isela bit her lip on an apology, bristling at the arrogance in his tone. It shocked her out of her reverie. Whatever he was, he didn’t think much of her; that was abundantly clear.

  They entered a set of buildings she thought might be the Old Royal Palace. Nothing to do but get it done. She sighed as they paused before what she hoped was the final set of doors. A pair of hulking men guarded this one. Their suits did nothing to disguise the fact that they were clearly there for brute force. Identical, grimly fixed faces stared ahead as they waited.

  At some unheard signal, the guard on the left nodded and spun to open the door.

  “You will address them as ‘sir’ or ‘madam’ at all times,” her cold-eyed escort informed her, no longer quite so aloof. “Remember that you go before your betters, for your own sake.”

  Isela swallowed her retort at the expression on his face. This was not the time to be cheeky.

  Wait a minute, she thought. Them?

  Her stomach missed its landing and crashed into her racing heart. Her escort looked back at her curiously.

  She lifted her chin and met his eyes. “I am ready.”

  Who walks into a wolf’s den and comes out alive? Her father’s old joke came unbidden as she stepped forward. A wolf.

  In the room’s perfect silence, burning wood crackled in the enormous fireplace like thunder, but Isela sensed she had walked in on an argument. Cloaked in darkness, punctuated with lamplight and the glow of flame, the cavernous space was thick with tension. Her skin hummed with it, nerves sending a message to her hindbrain that only had one interpretation: run.

  Instead, Isela made herself stand very still and measured her breathing. As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she realized she was flanked. Assembled in a single room were the eight most powerful necromancers in the world. She sealed her lips shut and forced a slow, quiet exhale out her nostrils.

  To her left, a dark-skinned woman sat queenlike at the head of a table, wearing elegant batik robes of the western African tribes of former Senegal and Nigeria. Her companions were a fine-boned Japanese man in an exquisitely tailored suit, and a slight woman tattooed on every visible inch of flesh. A curl of smoke rose from a brown-wrapped cigarette between her knobby fingers. Curiously, it had no scent.

  She exhaled as she spoke, smoke curling around the hint of aboriginal lilt in her voice. “Small, but the record cannot be a lie.”

  Across the room, a sloe-eyed woman with the poise of a pharaoh and the beauty of a runway model shifted her attention to Isela. Deep, kohl-lined eyes, so dark they appeared pupil-less, sought to peel Isela’s skin away to stare into her skull.

  “You’ve frightened her,” she purred, smiling. “Come, Paolo, get on with it.”

  “Bem-vindo, pretty dancer. We have a job for you.”

  Isela jumped at the voice directly behind her. She reeled back from the wide caramel face framed by curly, gold-streaked hair. How had he gotten so close? She tripped, stumbling over her heel, and felt her balance give.

  Shit, she was going to go down, in front of a room full of necromancers. A part of her brain screamed relief; let them pick another dancer! But pride shouted louder as she recovered in an effective, if less than elegant, plié.

  Strong, feverishly warm hands caught her elbow, tipped her upright. Isela turned and came face-to-face with her very own necromancer, Azrael. She’d seen him once but at a great distance and obscured by a crowd. He had been darkness and movement then, a smudge in the scene, like a thumbprint on a photograph.

  His eyes are silver, Isela’s startled brain coughed up as she stared into his face with the helpless rapture of a rodent before a cobra strike. It was replaced quickly with gorgeous, which came from another part of her anatomy entirely. She flushed.

  He had a face like one of the sculptures in the hall: strong forehead, with a heavy brow and a broad, formidable jaw. A bow-shaped mouth plumped deliciously in all the right places, though the lips were firmly fixed. Skin dusted with gold hinted that he had not been born in the city he now claimed as his home. His eyes, lifted at the corners and framed with full lashes, bore into her as though her every thought was ink on a page for his exploration.

  And judging by the sharp tilt of his eyebrow, he found them utterly inane.

  That shocked her into motion. Released, Isela put her back to the fireplace. That put all the necromancers between her and the door, but she had no hope of escape anyway. From the moment she entered the room, she’d been at their mercy.

  Each of them captivated her attention. Isela longed to study each but was terrified to be caught staring. Worst was Azrael, who made breathing feel like effort.

  You have value to them; show them why they asked for you.

  She swept her leg behind her in an elegant curtsey. “Isela Vogel, Principal Godsdancer, Praha Academy. How may I serve you?”

  Isela aimed her words at the Sur American necromancer, who seemed the least terrifying of this group. He reminded her of her youngest brother: a handsome, cocky male wi
th an easy smile.

  “At least she knows her place. Unlike most of them.” Isela jerked in surprise at the Russian-accented voice of a stunning redhead draped over a curule chair beside the fireplace.

  The redhead picked at her nails with a jewel-hilted dagger. At Isela’s sustained gaze, she showed teeth that had been filed to points. “You’ll do what we tell you and be grateful you are useful.”

  The elegant man at the table shook his head, distaste on his face. “Gods, Vanka. Control yourself.”

  The redhead’s snarl melted the bones in Isela’s body, and she fought the urge to run.

  Stay put, she told herself. No sudden moves.

  “You are American.” Paolo spoke again when the tension had ebbed.

  “I was born there,” Isela said evenly. “After the godsquake, we moved to California. The tech industry was saturated, so when Czech opened citizenship to people with development skills, we came.”

  “You cost me good talent when you opened your borders, Azrael.” A male in a white T-shirt and a motorcycle jacket uncrossed his jean-clad legs and rose from his chair.

  His heavy leather boots moved soundlessly across the floor as he approached. His was a rough sort of handsome, with a face from a sepia-toned daguerreotype and the sort of broken-hip swagger that reminded her of an old Western movie. Isela steeled herself not to flinch at the proximity as he approached, but he walked past to the fire with only a fleeting glance.

  What was left of North America belonged to him. Rumor had it he was busy trying to recover what was left of the East Coast from its status as a nuclear wasteland and stayed out of most allegiance business.

  “They needed jobs,” the European necromancer shrugged. “I needed expertise. Opportunity.”

  When Azrael folded his arms, his chest and biceps pulled against the black dress shirt tucked into slim-cut trousers. Isela caught herself staring and reined her gaze back to the crest over the door. With mouths open and wings spread, the eagles and lions that made up the four quadrants of the Czech coat of arms looked as though they wanted escape this room as desperately as she did.

  “You speak fluent German.” Paolo ignored them, making a slow circle of her.

  Isela kept her attention on the crest, her words careful. “My father was born in Berlin. My mother learned when my brothers were kids. We spoke it at home.”

  “Not an only child?” Paolo said.

  “Third of four,” Isela said, fighting the clutching feeling in her chest at the mention of her family. “I don’t see them much. I live and work at the Academy.”

  She glanced at Azrael, convinced her first impression of his eyes had been wrong. He had moved casually to the side of the fireplace opposite the redhead, Vanka. He occupied space like a shadow. Absolute stillness coupled with a roving attention made him fill the room. His eyes were not a bright gray but actual silver; the color a cat’s eyes shone when light reflected on them in the dark. None of the others had that gleam. It was an inhuman gaze. Any expectation she might have had that he would protect her from the others evaporated. She stared back at the crest, feeling his silver eyes fix on her.

  Another voice spoke up from the table. “You were the youngest student in the history of the Praha Academy.”

  Isela redirected her attention, responding to the elegant woman in batik directly. “Director Sauvageau recruited me when I was eleven.”

  “A child of refugees,” the suited man mused. “The Praha Academy is one of the most respected in the world. Three times the number of auditions as there are openings. What did she see in you?”

  Isela knew what she was. Still, it grated her to hear her background reduced to points on a dossier.

  She fought to keep her voice even. “I wish I could say. I started dancing late because of our circumstances and had inconsistent formal training, at best, until the Academy. I was offered a partial scholarship. My parents scraped up the rest so that I could attend as a resident student and complete my schooling and dance training simultaneously. I planned to be a ballet dancer, maybe teach.”

  “Like your mother,” he said lightly. “Yoga, is it? Quaint.”

  “Godsdancing called me,” Isela said sharply to draw the conversation back to herself. “I was given an opportunity. I earned my place.”

  The fire crackled.

  “This one has teeth,” the tattooed woman chuckled, a low, threatening sound.

  “You remember the war?” Paolo asked, cocking his head with that same inviting smile.

  Isela shook her head. Back straight, head up, shoulders down, she ran through her checklist, ignoring the ache in her hip. They hadn’t so much as offered her a chair, but she wasn’t about to ask.

  “We heard stories,” she said carefully. “My parents tried to keep our lives as normal as possible.”

  “And the gods?” the suited man asked.

  Oh, the beings who almost destroyed the entire world? Were they just crazy and oblivious not to know what they were doing? Or were they just selfish enough not to care?

  No one knew the exact relationship between gods and necromancers. If necromancers were their children, that would make a strong argument for insanity.

  “I’m not sure what you’re asking.” Isela forced her voice to be indifferent.

  “Are you a believer?” The tattooed woman had a singsong way of speaking. Only it sounded less comforting and more like the lure of a siren.

  “Do I believe in the gods?”

  Stay on message, Vogel. Don’t get lost in the details.

  “I believe humans didn’t know what else to call them,” Isela began. “I believe, for whatever reason, they’re drawn to creativity—dancing—and that our intention was good when we first tried to communicate with them. I believe we made a mistake thinking they would behave like the gods we believed in. That kind of power is dangerous, to be respected and not taken, or used, frivolously.”

  “And yet, you danced for a real estate deal this morning.” The suited man laughed.

  Isela’s face burned, but she did not back down.

  “I dance because of how it feels to disappear in movement,” she said pointedly. “To lose sense of myself and become something larger. You approve the requests.”

  And if you knew what the gods could do, why didn’t you stop them before they wrecked the world? She bit her tongue to avoid snapping. Radical groups speculated the war had all been a front to move the necromancers into power.

  The fire popped in the weighted silence. Isela was sure they were talking around her, telepathically.

  Clearing her throat, she composed herself. “May I ask what this has to do with the job?”

  “What do you know of Luther Voss?” the suited man asked.

  “Who?”

  “Indeed,” he said with a final sigh that let her know this had all been a game to him. “Paolo, you’ve read the dossier. She comes highly recommended. Top of her class at the Academy. Ten years as a professional. Her success rate is quite remarkable, considering the decline.”

  Isela’s interest piqued. Outcome data was kept closely guarded. But this was evidence of something she had long suspected: the gods’ interest in humanity was waning.

  “You’ll forgive our curiosity.” Paolo took over the conversation again, but his smooth smile and friendly demeanor no longer relaxed her. “But you are something of a, how do they say in America, Raymond, an underdog?” He did nothing to hide the taunt in his words.

  “We are simply dying to know what your secret is,” the sloe-eyed beauty in the window spoke up. Her voice was like velvet, beguiling, but Isela felt as if a heavy weight was pressing against her forehead.

  “My. . . secret?”

  “To your success,” she continued, rising from her seat.

  There were monuments to this woman all over the Middle East. Her people loved and worshipped her as the incarnation of a god. Isela felt the compulsion toward awe, but beneath it was a terror that made the hairs rise on the back of her neck. />
  “I don’t know. . .” Isela faltered. Her head pounded.

  “What is so special about you?” The woman smiled. “What stories do you whisper when you dance for them?”

  “I have no secrets.” Isela felt ill. She wavered on her feet, feeling the words spill out of her. “There are one hundred and eight postures and maneuvers. I simply arrange them according to the request.”

  “Kadijah.” Azrael’s voice cut through the haze shrouding her brain like a lick of flame. The pressure eased, leaving only the ache of an old burn. “You have forgotten the tenants of our allegiance.”

  Isela gasped, looking between them. The woman was already sauntering away, resuming her throne beside the window. But the expression of pure loathing she cast Azrael would have flayed the skin from the bones of a mortal.

  “We all have secrets, my dear,” she said, eyes switching to Isela with a look that no doubt made her subjects fall down in worship. “You may keep yours, for now.”

  Isela felt sick. And angry. Angry she had been brought here, made to stand before them and defend herself as they picked at her past and used their powers to prod her like a lab rat.

  “We have a certain problem that requires your services,” Paolo went on.

  “I’ve danced to resolve many issues, sir.” She forced the words between gritted teeth. “It would help to know what the issue is, for my choreography.”

  “You’ll know when we tell you, insolent bitch.” Vanka’s snarl was Isela’s only warning. The jeweled blade came out of nowhere, arrowing toward her. Isela spun, crouching to avoid it. Her hand slipped under the pooling material of her skirt and freed the knife on her thigh.

  Rage burned clean through fear and prudence. She threw before thinking, aiming for the redhead’s heart. Her own blade went through the redheaded necromancer, embedding itself in the chair’s back. The image of the necromancer wavered as it passed through and reformed, unharmed. Only now, the Vanka’s face held naked outrage.