Hearts of Darkness (18 page)
Read Hearts of Darkness Online
Authors: Kira Brady
The princess stood outside the chain-link fence that kept trespassers out of the tunnel. Her long blond hair was unbound, and the harsh sea wind whipped it angrily around her head. Her demure white gown glowed ghostlike in the light of the swollen moon. She clutched a knitted lace stole against the cold and pretended not to notice him, but a slight stiffening of her shoulders gave her away.
Corbette took a moment to calm his anger. He studied her. How often did he take the time to really look at herâthe woman behind the title? He knew she resented her lack of privacy. Any self-respecting teenager hated to be told what to do, and Lucia was allowed to do little on her own. He sympathized, though he himself had not known the freedom of childhood. He had been raised to be the Raven Lord. Occasionally, he'd chafed at the heavy yoke of responsibility, but he took solace in the honor of seeing his people safe. Why couldn't she see it the same way?
“I dream,” she said in a small voice that broke him out of his musings, “of people screaming. They cry out for help, but I can never reach them.” She raised her thin, ungloved hand and placed it lightly on the fence, as if reaching out to those poor souls.
Corbette was startled. Lucia hadn't shown any of the talents the Crane Wife was supposed to possess. But maybe there was still hope for her. Dream visions were the domain of the Harbinger. “Is that why you can't sleep?” he asked.
She nodded. She looked younger without her usual shield of haughtiness. The Aether swirled around her like an old friend. It sparkled over her alabaster skin and danced in the blue depths of her eyes. She seemed ignorant of it.
“You shouldn't have left the Hall.” He knew that was the wrong thing to say, but he didn't know how to comfort her in the vision's aftermath.
“What happened here?” she asked. She rubbed her arms against the cold.
“Mayor White is tunneling beneath downtown for a new light rail line. You know that. We've been trying to stop it, but Norgard has thrown up hurdles against all our efforts.”
“And before that? In this spot?”
“There was a Drekar brothel that burned down.”
“You mean we blew it up.” She shivered. “I can feel the sorrow. It's so thick in the air I can almost touch it.”
“Yes.” And wasn't that one word loaded with uselessness? He wasn't adept at expressing emotion. He knew his subjects whispered that he had no heart, that he was cold inside and out. He felt as much as any of them. He simply lacked the freedom to express anything other than total control.
The crows alerted him to the arrival of his steam car.
“Let us return, my lady,” he commanded. He held out his arm to her.
Reluctantly, she took it.
“I will take care of you,” he promised. If she would only stay put.
Chapter 9
Deep in the Underground beneath Pioneer Square, Hart felt the first rush of hope. The necklace was in his pocket. Freedom was in his grasp. It was almost too good to be true.
Kayla had given him the necklace for safekeeping. It was too easy. When she learned he'd given it away, she would be pissed. She wouldn't understand. Couldn't. His life was so far removed from anything she knew. A couple dead bodies, a few shape-shifter encounters, a little blood magicâand she thought she'd seen it all. That was the tip of the iceberg. He'd helped her out of a tough spot once or twice, and she thought him some kind of hero. Let her keep her illusions. Let her wonder why he'd done it, but never know the truth.
He passed a trip wire, gave the password to the watch, and made his way into the heart of Norgard's den of thieves. The dimly lit main cave acted as command center for opium running and prostitution. Stacks of stolen and illegal merchandise rose to the ceiling. A mess of cables and monitors in the center displayed video feeds from all over the city, from the mayor and city council offices to the bank vaults and the traffic cams. A passel of ratty kids sat watching the monitors. More were stationed through the city, taking notes with their own eyes in case the power to the monitors failed, as it often did. They were mostly outcasts and runaways. Norgard culled the sharpest from the litter and brought them here under his wing. Trained them to steal, spy, and murder.
A regular Fagan, Norgard was.
The mortality rate was high. Hart couldn't keep track of the current runners, the youngest of the bunch, but he recognized the others.
In the corner, a few operatives watched TV while they cleaned their weapons. Nearby, two men in camouflage pants and white muscle shirts shot pool beneath an antique Tiffany-style lamp. They wore glowing gold bands around their biceps, just as he did, displaying their blood-slave status.
No one looked up to acknowledge him. In the reflection of the monitors, Hart watched the kids' eyes follow him.
Something was up.
He played it cool. Shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it across a stack of boxes. He got loose, rolling his neck, cracking his knuckles, stretching his arms like he was getting good and comfortable. The buzz of machinery and thwack of the pool balls masked the sound of footsteps behind him, but his nose caught the unmistakable stench of sweat and fear.
A second later something sharp whistled through the air toward his head. Hart was ready for it. He caught the assailant by surprise, flipping him over and sending him flying into a stack of boxes against the far wall with a crash.
The kidâa burly teenager with long greasy hair and a face like a Dobermanâwas back on his feet in seconds, his eyes flashing with shaken confidence. He charged. Hart swept his feet out from under him in one swift kick. The kid popped back up, ready for more. His style was quick and dirty; he was a street fighter, like most of them. He fought like his life depended on it.
It did.
Hart danced around him, light on his toes despite his large frame, avoiding the desperate kicks and punches the boy threw at him.
“Coward!” The kid breathed fast and hard. “Fight me, you fucker!”
Hart didn't want to hit a kid, but he knew this wouldn't end unless he did. He sidestepped another lunge and tripped the kid again with a heavy boot to the ankle.
The kid grunted as he fell. He rolled. A knife flashed in his hand. His eyes glistened with hate and fear.
“Enough play. Finish it,” Norgard said from behind him.
Hart didn't turn around, but he knew the Dreki watched the fight with no emotion. Gone were the charm and winning smile. Unmasked, Norgard was merciless. Lethal. To the world he was a compassionate businessman, leading the community to a better tomorrow. In the shadows he pulled strings, engaged in human trafficking, and sent his trained mercenaries to silence the opposition.
“I can do it, master.” The kid wiped his nose, leaving a smear of blood across his cheek.
Hart almost felt sorry for him, but it was no mercy to go easy. The initiation process was brutal, designed to train warriors for a brutal life. Better to show the kid the misery he was in for while there was still a small chance of escape.
Norgard breathed his name, and Hart felt the bands on his biceps tighten. He had no choice but to obey.
He let the emptiness flow through him, erased from his mind everything but the quick elimination of the target. His fists flew. An uppercut rocked into the kid's jaw and an elbow jab to the kidneys knocked the air from his lungs. It was over in less than a second.
The kid lay gasping on the ground, blood trickling down his nose. Angry, fresh bruises decorated his ugly face.
Hart turned from the kid and stood at attention, his feet apart, his hands clasped behind his back. He should have felt nothing, but all he could think was how disappointed Kayla would be.
“You have failed,” Norgard said, looking at the boy from his cold, dead eyes. He wore a thick silk robe that swirled around his feet. The sleeves hid his hands. His white-blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail that kissed his shoulder blades.
Around them the circle of operatives and runners tightened.
“No, I . . .” The kid searched each face frantically, looking for a glimmer of mercy. He found none.
“Did you not promise me your fidelity?” Norgard asked softly.
“Y-yes.” The kid pulled himself to his knees. His whole body shook.
“And did I not ask that you win this fight for me?”
“Yes.” The kid looked younger now that the swagger was kicked out of him. “I-I tried butâ”
“Tried? What use is trying?” Norgard raised his eyes and asked the faces around him. A murmur of distain rumbled through the group. “Failure is death in this world, boy.” It was cold, hard truth. “What use is a weapon that fails?”
The boy's face paled.
“No use,” Norgard said. “No use at all.”
“P-please, sir.” The kid crawled forward on his knees. “Master, please give me another chance.”
“There are no second chances.”
“Please! Please . . .” The kid grabbed at the hem of his robe. “I'll do anything . . . anything at all.”
Hart stared at the wall straight ahead. He knew what was coming. He had been that boy once. Pleading no longer moved him, if it ever had. He had no pity, no mercy, no goodness left in him. At least, he shouldn't. Last week, maybe, he hadn't. Today? Today his emotions were jumbled together, fighting to rewake the man he'd been half a lifetime ago.
“Please!” the kid begged again.
Rank fear filled the air. Hart's canines lengthened in anticipation, cutting into his lower lip. A drop of blood welled sweet on his tongue, and it reminded him of Kayla. Her blood stark against the cold marble crypt. Her blood racing in her veins as her arousal beckoned. Kayla, her smile brilliant with the success of the hunt. Her nipples pebbled against the cold. Her plump lips parted for invasion.
By the Lady, he should not have let her go. He was a bad guy. A killer. He took what he wanted, when he wanted it. When had he changed?
“I swear to you, I will not fail you again.” The kid said the words that would begin his servitude.
“You see this warrior?” Norgard asked, gesturing to Hart. “He made his first kill at fifteen.”
Hart remembered. He'd been an angry, hurting kid, more animal than man. Fighting over scraps of food in the street. It had been a cruel winter. Chilblains covered his knuckles. His lips cracked and bleeding from the harsh scrape of wind outside. The moon fever was heavy upon him. In those early days, after his mother's death, he'd steered clear from the cities with their crowded streets. Far safer to let the moon take him in the forest, where he could hunt deer and elk and let the hot fresh blood sate his madness. But that winter the game was scarce. Snow drove him from the safety of the wild. Half dead with hunger, he let his stomach lead him to a truck stop. He'd fallen asleep in the back of a pickup, and woke in the middle of downtown Seattle.
The moon hovered on the cusp of turning, that bitch of a goddess who sunk her claws deep in his soul. Stumbling down an alley, he'd come upon a small group of street kids warming themselves at a garbage can fire. They were cooking hot dogs, and the smell of the meat had made his eyes flash black and his teeth descend.
Sharing was not on their agenda. He still remembered the taunts and threats of the kids defending their territory, then silence once the firelight revealed his inhuman eyes. The knives were out in a wink. The wind moaned through that alley as they surrounded him. The air was thick with desperation.
He might have been able to stop himself, to fight the call of the early moon and drag himself out of that godforsaken alley to die somewhere else. But he couldn't fight both the moon and the boys.
The Change took him. Screams rent the dirty, broken lane. Blood splattered the brick walls of the buildings on either side. He didn't remember the actual fight; he never did in the throes of the madness. The world narrowed to smell, touch, and taste: piss and acrid fear, snap of bone, shred of muscle, the metallic tang of sweet life.
“I found him hunched in an alley next to an overturned garbage can and a dying fire, munching on human bones,” Norgard said. “His face and clothes were soaked red and he was half crazed with bloodlust.” He laughed. Laugh was too light and happy a word. It wasn't a pretty sound. It was full of malice, tinged with violence. “He growled and snapped at my hand like a rabid pup. But I took him under my wing,” Norgard continued. “Gave him shelter and guidance. Training. He has never failed me.”
“P-please just one more chanceâ” the kid pleaded.
“Never. And now he is the most highly accomplished hunter, at the top of his game, my best warrior, a role model for all my children.” Norgard smiled at the circle around him, but his eyes never warmed.
The young runners gazed back at their master with idolatry in their eyes, the older operatives with loyalty tinged with wariness.
“Every one of them would give their life for me. Are you not willing to do the same?”
“No, I . . . I mean yes . . .” The kid scrambled to find the correct answer.
Norgard said nothing. The silence stretched.
The kid swallowed. “Yes, I would give my life for you. M-master.”
“Good. I am asking for it now.”
“B-but Iâ”
Hart wanted to leave. His stomach churned. He didn't know whether to hope the kid passed the test or hope he didn't. Slavery or death? The choice was not an easy one to make.
“Did you or did you not pledge it to me?”
As realization slowly dawned on the kid, that this was, in fact, the end, a calm acceptance settled over him. Manning up. He stopped groveling and sat up straight. Brushed the tears out of his brown eyes and looked up into Norgard's face. “I did,” he said. His voice shook, but whose wouldn't? Most grown men went kicking and screaming to their own death. It took a special kind to accept it as this kid had finally done.
“Good.” Norgard nodded once in satisfaction.
The muscled men who had been playing pool when Hart first came in stepped forward. One of them stripped the shirt from the kid's back and the other held out two golden cuffs.
Hart was hyperaware of the bands on his own arms. They seemed to burn his skin.
Norgard shook his long sleeves to uncover his hideous half-Turned hands. His fingers were clawed, his nails black and long. The skin was faintly scaled. He produced a silver knife from the folds of his robe and held it up.
The kid flinched, but didn't back away.
“I accept your offering,” Norgard said. The knife flashed, and a ribbon of blood welled on each of the kid's biceps. “I accept your sacrifice.” Replacing the knife in his robe, he took the golden cuffs. He clasped one around each arm over the ribbon of blood. “I accept you into my service with the blessing of Tiamat until this mark is repaid.”
Few lived long enough to see that day. Those who didn't were forced to serve even after death, trapping them on this side of the Gate. No peace in the grave.
The gold bands were carved with ancient runes. Slowly, the carvings turned red as they sucked the kid's blood out of his body. He cried out in pain and fell onto his hands. Beads of blood sprang from his pores.
The bands began to glow. Norgard raised his hands again and said something in Old Norse. A blinding flash shook the room, and the kid screamed. When Hart could see again, the kid lay on the ground, unconscious. The bands no longer glowed.
“Take him,” Norgard ordered the two men who had aided in the ceremony. The taller one threw the boy over his shoulder, and they disappeared into the tunnels at the far end of the cave.
“Back to your work.” Norgard clapped his hands, and the troops scattered. He caught and held Hart's eyes, commanding him silently to stay.
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