Dark Deceit (2 page)

I woke up to raised voices. Climbing from
my bed, I opened the door a little. Mother and Father were arguing...they were
arguing about me.

*

D
arrion faded to
the walk-up in South Boston, the weight of the twin Berettas under his arms a
comfort. This was one of his safe houses and gods knew he needed them. Although
he realized he was a walking, talking target for any one of the rival guilds,
he simply didn’t give a fuck. Not tonight. Not any night. After sweeping his
eyes around to see if he’d been followed, he opened the front door and slid
inside.

The building’s ancient heating system suddenly lurched to life; a
dying beast that grunted and groaned as he walked up the five flights of stairs
to his apartment. He paused a few feet from the door, the hairs at the back of
his neck prickling. Fuck. He drew one of the twins silently. Approaching one
side of the jamb, he reached out and tried the handle. Locked.

With a growl in his throat, he faded just onto the other side of the
door, ready. A delicate fragrance hung in the air.
Honeysuckle
, he
thought. With narrowed eyes, he moved through the apartment, looking for signs
of the intruder he knew was still there.

After a chronic silence, he was met with a hesitant female voice. ‘I
mean you no harm, Walker.’

He cursed. ‘Show yourself, female.’

A woman emerged slowly from the bathroom on Darrion’s left. She was
wearing a white cloak that covered her head and shoulders, dropping her
features into shadow. On her diminutive body, she wore a dress made of the
sheerest fabric. A moment later, she drew the hood back from her blonde hair
and dropped her blue eyes to the floor. Gods, she couldn’t have been any older
than sixteen.

He cursed her again, bringing the muzzle of the gun up to her
forehead, teenager or not. ‘Who are you, and how did you find this place?’ he
snarled, baring his fangs.

She was Aesirean, her cornflower blue eyes rising then widening until
he could see the whites all the way around. The thick scent of her fear started
to permeate the room, warring with the scent of honeysuckle. ‘Please,’ she
begged, her fearful eyes fixed on his finger on the trigger. ‘My mistress sent
me here to speak with you.’

‘Who is your mistress? How did you find me?’ He could feel the air
beginning to thicken further as the fear consumed her. He breathed in that
weighted air, feeling his stomach clench tight with need.

‘M-my mistress is the queen,’ the girl stammered, the color
draining from her cheeks.

Darrion sneered at the title. ‘What do you want?’

The female licked her lips. ‘She wishes me to tell you she has a request—a
contract if you prefer.’

‘I don’t work for the Aesir,’ he spat back bitterly, dropping his
arm, but not holstering the weapon.

‘
Please
,’ the girl started trembling visibly. ‘She said she
would kill me if I did not come back with the right answer.’

He levelled her with a cold, dead stare. ‘Your
queen
couldn’t
afford me.’

‘She has given me gold.’ The servant spoke in a rush, reaching into
the cloak. Darrion raised his weapon again, training it on her head so when she
eventually looked up again, the muzzle was right between her eyes. She gasped
in surprise, the coin purse dropping from her hand.

She dropped to the ground, her shaking fingers reaching for the gold
that had spilled out onto the floor. She started to cry, her sobs
delicate—restrained—as if she was afraid to make any more noise. Darrion
watched her pale head bob around as she worked; wondering why in the Hel this
girl was sent to him in the first place.

She seemed to have pulled herself together when she faced him once
more. ‘Please...is there no way you would say yes?’

Darrion snorted. There was one way, but it would never happen.
‘Yeah, get that bitch down here to ask me herself instead of sending me little
girls.’

The servant dropped into a curtsey and faded.

Darrion rubbed the back of his skull with his palm and holstered the
Berretta. He fucking hated the Aesir, and not because they had their heads so
far up their asses they thought they were the ones who invented the sun when
they yawned, but because those pretentious fucks had persecuted his people for
centuries. There had been a capture or kill order on any Mare found within the
civilian population since Odin had deemed them ‘too dangerous’ to remain
breathing.

Gods, he needed a drink.

Finding his bottle of Maker’s Mark, he tore the wax cap off and took
a deep pull. The amber liquid burned on the way down. The bottle began to shake
in his hand, his pissed-off body finally signally its intent. Wiping the back
of his hand over his mouth, he put the bottle down and let out a deep lungful.

‘Did my little handmaiden shake you up so badly,
morier
?’
With a growl, Darrion spun around, pulling a throwing knife from the holster on
his thigh and launching it in the direction of the voice. The blade stuck into
the wall, vibrating with the force still surging through the metal.

The woman who had been the target had simply side-stepped the steel,
unruffled by his aggression. If she’d been going for inconspicuousness, she’d
failed. The blood-red gown she was wearing was cinched in at the waist, pushing
her breasts up until they threatened to spill over the top in a waterfall of
warm flesh. Darrion glared at the woman and reached for his gun.

‘Leave the weapon where it lays,
morier
.’

Darrion ground his teeth together, but stayed his hand. ‘I could
have killed her, you know.’ He stalked to his left, watching the queen with suspicious
eyes. She didn’t smell of fear yet, but there was still time.

‘But you didn’t,’ she replied smoothly, running a hand through hair
the color of spun gold. Her shrewd ocean-deep blue eyes watched him move,
watched him position himself. ‘And do you want to know why?’

‘Go on. Dazzle me.’ Darrion took another step to his left, still
moving until he was at her back. She didn’t turn to him, barely glancing in his
direction with the slight turn of her head.

‘I still haunt your dreams,’ she replied, smiling insidiously.  

Darrion bared his fangs at her, a rumbling growl vibrating through his
chest. ‘Don’t flatter yourself.’

The female laughed; a high, tinkling sound that grated on his
eardrums. ‘You think I couldn’t finish you by the time it took for you to
inhale your next breath?’ he snarled back.  

She waved away his threat with a casual hand. ‘Don’t you want to
know what the job is?’

‘I couldn’t give a—’

‘Odin,’ she murmured. Darrion’s mouth hung open for a second before
he pulled his shit together. He couldn’t be falling apart. He was a goddamn
Walker—the best there ever was. Stalking around the other side of her, he
watched her face for any signs of dishonesty.

He didn’t see any, but that didn’t mean a goddamn thing.

‘Kill Odin,’ she repeated.

A pause suspended between them.

His eyes narrowed to slits. ‘You’re asking the impossible.’

‘Nothing is impossible,’ she purred back, leaving no doubt in his
mind that a satisfied grin would be curling her lips.

He made his way back to where he had started. Staring into her face,
his next words came out on a low growl. ‘I should just kill you now.’

‘I’d be gone before you reached for your weapon.’

He smiled widely, showing her his fangs. ‘Who needs a weapon?’

Her pupils dilated, but instead of the scent of her fear, he only
smelled lust. Darrion inhaled deeply, taking in the fragrance. His body stirred
at the memories that came along with that particular bouquet.

She cleared her throat and jerked her royal chin forward. ‘You think
I came here unprotected?’

‘No, I don’t think you’re that stupid. A whore, sure, but not
stupid.’

Her delicate expression darkened, her lips thinning out into a nasty
snarl. ‘How dare you!’ she hissed.

He chuckled sardonically. ‘Slit your wrists, sweetheart,’ he said
dismissively. ‘It’ll lower your blood pressure.’ He stalked away pleased with
this reaction. So the great unflappable queen had just proved otherwise. When
his eyes returned to her face, she was in control of her emotions once more.
This was the woman he knew. This was the woman he remembered.

He took out one of his daggers and sank into an armchair in the
corner of the room, picking at the dried blood beneath his fingernails. ‘So
tell me, oh great queen, how am I supposed to take out Odin? The last I
checked, he was truly immortal.’ Odin was not like the other Aesir. You could
kill any god if you did enough damage to their bodies. But Odin...Odin was different.

She continued to stare, drawing out the silence. Darrion’s teeth
ground together. Eventually, she said, ‘There is a way for him to die.’

Darrion raised a brow. ‘Even if that were true, you think I’ll
believe you?’ he snorted. ‘You want your husband to die? Why?’

Her blue eyes clouded over with rage. ‘I cannot stand for his
infidelity any longer.’

His infidelity?
Darrion thought wildly.
She was the one who ushered people in between her legs like it was a movie theater about to close its doors for the screening. He focused on the tip
of his blade for a second. Without lifting his eyes, he murmured, ‘I’m all
ears.’

‘Kill Brynhildr and you can kill him.’

His eyes flipped to hers, narrowing, sceptical. ‘How does that
work?’

She came two paces closer to him, dropping to her knees. Although he
was disgusted by her, disgusted with himself for burying his body into the well
of hers so many times before, he still found her curiously arousing. His cock
stirred to life ever so slightly at the sight of her supplicating herself to
him.

She shuffled forward, parting his knees with her hands and sliding
in between his thighs. He didn’t stop cleaning under his nails which was
annoying her, he could tell.

‘Bryn has a feather cloak that holds her immortality. Destroy the
cloak, you destroy her and Odin can be killed.’

Darrion’s eyes narrowed, the knife stilling in his fingers. He
didn’t trust her. She could be feeding him false info just to fuck around with
his head. It wouldn’t be the first time. ‘Why have you sought me out, Frigg?’

She smiled at him innocently, but it was like having a viper smiling
at him: cold with death not just a threat, but a promise. ‘You are the best.’
Her hands ran up the inside of his thighs toward his hips. Fingertips brushed
over his partial erection. Her head dipped and her tongue moistened her lips.
There was no way in Hel he was going to let her get her mouth anywhere near
him.

He placed the tip of the blade under her chin and tipped her head
back. Darrion saw movement from his periphery, but she waved her muscle back
with a casual flick of her wrist. ‘I’ve seen decomposing bodies that are more
appealing than what you are about to offer me. Get up,
my queen
.’

Her eyes flared with anger, but she managed to get herself back onto
her feet. Crossing her arms over her chest, she looked at him impatiently.

‘So, will you take the contract? As you know, money is
inconsequential. I can pay you whatever you want.’

He stood up and slid the blade into the holster on his thigh. Odin
was his ultimate hit. He had dreamed of a time when he would be able to put a
blade through the All-Father’s heart, to hear his final breaths shuddering from
his lips, to know that the god could no longer hunt his people down and take
parents from their children.

Darrion refused to let his memories take over, but like a roiling
ocean during a storm, there was no way to stop them. He heard the echoes of the
screams—smelled the blood. He heard his father’s final words to him. He
remembered the way he had abandoned them all. With a shudder, his eyes
refocused on the room.

‘Don’t insult me with your money,
my queen
.’ Darrion’s voice
was sharp like a shard of glass and as dark and threatening as a gun muzzle
pressed to someone’s temple.

‘Will you do it?’ she asked somewhat impatiently.

‘I’ll think about it,’ he snarled back.

The woman smiled slyly—knowingly—her lips tilting up in the corners.
‘Good.’ She stepped back and nodded to the two men who she’d thought had faded
in without his notice.

He turned around. ‘Now get out of my apartment.’

K
orvain wiped the blood
from his favorite curved blade against the pant leg of the guy who’d just had a
real intimate introduction to the weapon. The fuck had apparently pissed off
the wrong people. The Mare looked around the apartment the mark had kept in
Boston. It was nice, if you liked the idea of wanting to slit your wrists just
for something to do.

Everything was white, or at least it had been. Now it was spattered
in the mark’s blood, painted in the stuff. The shag rug where the POS was
laying had gone from pink to red. Soon it would be brown as the blood dried to
a hard crust.

Message sent.

Korvain’s pocket began to vibrate. Palming his phone, he answered it
and held it to his ear. ‘Speak.’

‘Sit rep?’ Darrion’s cold voice asked on the other end of the phone.

Korvain glanced around the room, nudging his mark with the toe of
his boot. ‘End game.’

‘Good. Divert.’

Korvain hung up and slid the phone back into one of the pockets of
his black cargoes. He faded back to Dorchester, stepping out of a dark alleyway
beside a cheap brothel. Under the haze of red-tinged lighting, there was a set
of dingy stairs leading to the upper level; syringes and bent spoons littering
the treads.

Korvain opened up Darrion’s office door and froze. His boss had the
tip of a throwing knife in his right hand, the concentration on his face
unmistakable.

‘Don’t move,’ Darrion murmured icily; his blue eyes fixed on a point
just over Korvain’s left shoulder. Korvain did as he was told, standing
stock-still, hardly breathing. Darrion had trained him, had taught him
everything he knew about killing. Korvain knew what the man was capable of, how
good he was with a blade in his hand.

Darrion drew his arm back above his head and released the blade in a
downward chopping motion. The blade sliced the air perfectly, flying just a
hair’s-breadth away from Korvain’s ear. The blade landed in the wooden board
behind him with a sharp
thunk
.

Korvain released the breath he’d been holding and straightened up. Darrion
stalked past him to retrieve the blades he must have been throwing at the wall
since he’d made the call to bring Korvain back in.

‘What took you so long?’

‘I didn’t realize you were timing me,’ Korvain replied in a cold
voice, walking over to one of the walls and putting his back to it. There were
a lot of bare walls to choose from. Darrion was no Martha Stewart.

Darrion took up the same position as before and took aim once more.
Thunk.
Thunk. Thunk.
‘I have another assignment for you.’ His voice was calm,
level, matter-of-fact. It was a little too calm—unnerving Korvain and sending a
chill down his spine.

‘Why didn’t you just text me the details?’

Darrion looked at him with a hard edge in his pale eyes. ‘Delicacy
is required.’

Korvain folded his arms across his chest. When was Darrion ever
delicate? When his boss wanted secrecy, it meant it was someone important, not
like the POS lesser god he’d killed earlier.

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
‘This is a once-in-a-lifetime hit. If
you can make the mark disappear, you’ll get paid triple what you usually get,
plus I’ll take five years off your contract.’

The muscle in Korvain’s jaw jumped. ‘I’m listening.’

Thunk.
‘You can’t fuck this up if you take
it.’
Thunk.
‘If you do,’
thunk,
‘you know what happens.’

That sound was
really
beginning to irritate Korvain. ‘Okay.
Want to tell me?’ he asked, his molars clenched together, grinding.

‘A Valkyrie,’ Darrion replied calmly, throwing a blade.

Korvain barked a harsh laugh. ‘A Valkyrie?’ he asked incredulously. ‘Why
not ask to kill Odin himself?’

Darrion turned, throwing the blade in his hand. It hit the wall
behind Korvain, but not before slicing open his cheek as he reflexively dodged
to the side. He hadn’t been fast enough though. And that pissed him off. The
rage Korvain kept simmering whenever he was around Darrion began to boil over,
making him see black spots when he blinked.

He felt the first warm rivulets of his blood tracking down his
cheek, dropping off his chin. Korvain reigned in his anger before Darrion
noticed and swiped the blood away with the back of his hand.

‘Laugh again and I won’t miss,’ Darrion warned, his voice lowering,
his nostrils flaring with rage. His boss turned back to his original target and
threw the last blade.
Thunk.

‘Alright, so you want a Valkyrie dead. There’s just one little
problem.’ That was a fucking understatement. The Valkyries were just like Odin:
truly immortal.

Korvain’s statement was greeted by silence, the fucking cricket-chirping
kind of silence. He paused, waiting for Darrion to jump on in and play
fill-the-blanks, but that didn’t happen. Korvain pushed on. ‘They’re
untouchable. Unless you’ve figured out a way to strip them of their
immortality, you’ll never even get close to hurting them.’

Darrion’s cold blue eyes turned back to him, and the strangest
emotion came onto his face. Korvain could have sworn he was actually smiling.

‘You’ve found a way?’

The Mare nodded.

‘Why don’t you kill her yourself then?’ Korvain asked.

‘I’m asking you to do the job.’

Korvain started to pace. You didn’t say no to Darrion. You negotiated
until you found a figure worth risking your life for. ‘Fifteen,’ he said.
Darrion’s eyebrow arched. ‘Take fifteen off my contract and I’ll do it.’

Korvain only had another seventeen years left of a fifty year term to
serve as Darrion’s attack dog, but if he could shave off some of that time,
maybe he’d make it through alive. He would be free of the blood tie.

His boss’s eyes narrowed. ‘Seven.’

Korvain squeezed his sweat-slicked hands into fists. ‘Twelve.’

‘Ten.’

A pause.

A deep breath released.

‘Ten.’

Darrion nodded. ‘Your mark is Brynhildr.’

Bryn was Odin’s first creation, his oldest Valkyrie, his strongest. Korvain’s
mind started churning over all the possibilities, the opportunities, the
options. ‘How?’

‘Have you heard about the Valkyrie’s feather cloaks?’ Korvain shook
his head. ‘This information has just come to my attention from a source I don’t
trust entirely, but I don’t trust anyone entirely,’ Darrion said mildly. ‘Apparently
Valkyries have a feather cloak they must keep in their possession.’ He took a
dagger from the holster on his thigh and slumped down into a chair. Picking
under his fingernails, he said, ‘Strip the feathers off the cloak and they
become mortal again. Strip the feathers and you can kill them.’

‘Who told you this?’

He pinned Korvain with an icy stare. ‘I told you, a source.’

‘An untrusted source,’ Korvain reiterated, holding that stare.

Darrion nodded slightly, his neck muscles twitching infinitesimally.
Korvain blew out a frustrated breath. Darrion probably didn’t even trust
himself he was so paranoid.

Korvain said, ‘This is what I’ve understood: get the cloak. Strip
the cloak. Kill the Valkyrie. Are we about on the same page here?’

‘Yes. Kill her Korvain and I will take ten years off your contract.
Fail and I’ll own you for the rest of your unnatural life.’

Korvain crossed his arms over his chest and sighed. Well, how could
a guy say no to that?