Dark Swan Bundle

“You're not a veterinarian. Veterinarians give dogs rabies vaccines. They don't throw elementals around.”

Kiyo regarded me levelly. “And Web designers don't banish elementals to the Otherworld.”

“Yeah, well, sometimes I moonlight.”

The faintest ghost of a smile flickered across his face. “We need to talk about this—”

“No. Don't get any closer.” If I could have cocked the wand like a gun, I would have.

“What are you going to do? You can't cast me out. It won't work.”

I hesitated, wondering about that. He seemed so human. He had felt human. I hadn't sensed anything from him like I would one of the gentry, yet his speed and strength had been superhuman.

“What do you want from me? Why did you bring me back here?”

“Look, Eugenie, just put the wand down. We'll talk. We'll figure this out.”

“I thought you couldn't be cast out,” I reminded him. “Why are you afraid of the wand? Maybe the Otherworld couldn't hurt you…but what about the Underworld?”

He didn't answer. I sent my will into the wand and felt the air crackle with power. Fear crossed Kiyo's face. So. He was afraid. That was all I needed to know. The words were on my lips to send him to the crossroads, but suddenly he moved with that rapid speed I'd seen earlier. He backed up toward the sliding glass door, opened it up, and then ran out and over the edge of the balcony…

I'd seen weirder things than a haunted shoe, but not many.

The Nike Pegasus sat on the office's desk, inoffensive, colored in shades of gray, white, and orange. Some of the laces were loosened, and a bit of dirt clung around the soles. It was the left shoe.

As for me, well…underneath my knee-length coat, I had a Glock .22 loaded with bullets carrying a higher-than-legal steel content. A cartridge of silver ones rested in the coat's pocket. Two athames lay sheathed on my other hip, one silver-bladed and one iron. Stuck into my belt near them was a wand, hand-carved oak and loaded with enough charmed gems to probably blow up the desk in the corner if I wanted to.

To say I felt overdressed was something of an understatement.

“So,” I said, keeping my voice as neutral as possible, “what makes you think your shoe is…uh, possessed?”

Brian Montgomery, late thirties with a receding hairline in serious denial, eyed the shoe nervously and moistened his lips. “It always trips me up when I'm out running. Every time. And it's always moving around. I mean, I never actually see it, but…like, I'll take them off near the door, then I come back and find this one under the bed or something. And sometimes…sometimes I touch it, and it feels cold…really cold…like…” He groped for similes and finally picked the tritest one. “Like ice.”

I nodded and glanced back at the shoe, not saying anything.

“Look, Miss…Odile…or whatever. I'm not crazy. That shoe is haunted. It's evil. You've gotta do something, okay? I've got a marathon coming up, and until this started happening, these were my lucky shoes. And they're not cheap, you know. They're an investment.”

It sounded crazy to me—which was saying something—but there was no harm in checking, seeing as I was already out here. I reached into my coat pocket, the one without ammunition, and pulled out my pendulum. It was a simple one, a thin silver chain with a small quartz crystal hanging from it.

I laced the chain's end through my fingers and held my flattened hand over the shoe, clearing my mind and letting the crystal hang freely. A moment later, it began to slowly rotate of its own accord.

“Well, I'll be damned,” I muttered, stuffing the pendulum back in my pocket. There was something there. I turned to Montgomery, attempting some sort of badass face, because that was what customers always expected. “It might be best if you stepped out of the room, sir. For your own safety.”

That was only half-true. Mostly I just found lingering clients annoying. They asked stupid questions and could do stupider things, which actually put me at more risk than them.

He had no qualms about getting out of there. As soon as the door closed, I found a jar of salt in my satchel and poured a large ring on the office's floor. I tossed the shoe into the middle of it and invoked the four cardinal directions with the silver athame. Ostensibly the circle didn't change, but I felt a slight flaring of power, indicating it had sealed us in.

Trying not to yawn, I pulled out my wand and kept holding the silver athame. It had taken four hours to drive to Las Cruces, and doing that on so little sleep had made the distance seem twice as long. Sending some of my will into the wand, I tapped it against the shoe and spoke in a sing-song voice.

“Come out, come out, whoever you are.”

There was a moment's silence, then a high-pitched male voice snapped, “Go away, bitch.”

Great. A shoe with attitude. “Why? You got something better to do?”

“Better things to do than waste my time with a mortal.”

I smiled. “Better things to do in a shoe? Come on. I mean, I've heard of slumming it, but don't you think you're kind of pushing the envelope here? This shoe isn't even new. You could have done so much better.”

The voice kept its annoyed tone, not threatening but simply irritated at the interruption. “
I'm
slumming it? Do you think I don't know who you are, Eugenie Markham? Dark-Swan-Called-Odile. A blood traitor. A mongrel. An assassin. A murderer.” He practically spit out the last word. “You are alone among your kind and mine. A bloodthirsty shadow. You do anything for anyone who can pay you enough for it. That makes you more than a mercenary. That makes you a whore.”

I affected a bored stance. I'd been called most of those names before. Well, except for my own name. That was new—and a little disconcerting. Not that I'd let him know that.

“Are you done whining? Because I don't have time to listen while you stall.”

“Aren't you being paid by the hour?” he asked nastily.

“I charge a flat fee.”

“Oh.”

I rolled my eyes and touched the wand to the shoe again. This time, I thrust the full force of my will into it, drawing upon my own body's physical stamina as well as some of the power of the world around me. “No more games. If you leave on your own, I won't have to hurt you.
Come out.
”

He couldn't stand against that command and the power within it. The shoe trembled, and smoke poured out of it. Oh, Jesus. I hoped the shoe didn't get incinerated during this. Montgomery wouldn't be able to handle that.

The smoke bellowed out, coalescing into a large, dark form about two feet taller than me. With all his wisecracks, I'd sort of expected a saucy version of one of Santa's elves. Instead, the being before me had the upper body of a well-muscled man, while his lower portion resembled a small cyclone. The smoke solidified into leathery gray-black skin, and I had only a moment to act as I assessed this new development. I swapped the wand for the gun, ejecting the clip as I pulled it out. By then, he was lunging for me, and I had to roll out of his way, confined by the circle's boundaries.

A keres. A male keres—most unusual. I'd anticipated something fey, which required silver bullets; or a spectre, which required no bullets. Keres were ancient death spirits originally confined to canopic jars. When the jars wore down over time, keres tended to seek out new homes. There weren't too many of them left in this world, and soon there'd be one less.

He bore down on me, and I took a nice chunk out of him with the silver blade. I used my right hand, the one I wore an onyx and obsidian bracelet on. Those stones alone would take a toll on a death spirit like him without the blade's help. Sure enough, he hissed in pain and hesitated a moment. I used that delay, scrambling to load the silver cartridge.

I didn't quite make it, because soon he was on me again. He hit me with one of those massive arms, slamming me against the walls of the circle. They might be transparent, but they felt as solid as bricks. One of the downsides of trapping a spirit in a circle was that I got trapped too. My head and left shoulder took the brunt of that impact, and pain shot through me in small starbursts. He seemed pretty pleased with himself over this, as overconfident villains so often are.

“You're as strong as they say, but you were a fool to try to cast me out. You should have left me in peace.” His voice was deeper now, almost gravelly.

I shook my head, both to disagree and to get rid of the dizziness. “It isn't your shoe.”

I still couldn't swap that goddamned cartridge. Not with him ready to attack again, not with both hands full. Yet I couldn't risk dropping either weapon.

He reached for me, and I cut him again. The wounds were small, but the athame was like poison. It would wear him down over time—if I could stay alive that long. I moved to strike at him once more, but he anticipated me and seized hold of my wrist. He squeezed it, bending it in an unnatural position and forcing me to drop the athame and cry out. I hoped he hadn't broken any bones. Smug, he grabbed me by the shoulders with both hands and lifted me up so that I hung face to face with him. His eyes were yellow with slits for pupils, much like some sort of snake's. His breath was hot and reeked of decay as he spoke.

“You are small, Eugenie Markham, but you are lovely and your flesh is warm. Perhaps I should beat the rush and take you myself. I'd enjoy hearing you scream beneath me.”

Ew. Had that thing just propositioned me? And there was my name again. How in the world did he know that? None of them knew that. I was only Odile to them, named after the dark swan in
Swan Lake,
a name coined by my stepfather because of the form my spirit preferred to travel in while visiting the Otherworld. The name—though not particularly terrifying—had stuck, though I doubted any of the creatures I fought knew the reference. They didn't really get out to the ballet much.

The keres had my upper arms pinned—I would have bruises tomorrow—but my hands and forearms were free. He was so sure of himself, so overly arrogant and confident, that he paid no attention to my struggling hands. He probably just perceived the motion as a futile effort to free myself. In seconds, I had the clip out and in the gun. I managed one clumsy shot and he dropped me—not gently. I stumbled to regain my balance again. Bullets probably couldn't kill him, but a silver one in the center of his chest would certainly hurt.

He stumbled back, half-surprised, and I wondered if he'd ever even encountered a gun before. It fired again, then again and again and again. The reports were loud; hopefully Montgomery wouldn't do something foolish and come running in. The keres roared in outrage and pain, each shot making him stagger backward until he was all the way against the circle's boundary. I advanced on him, retrieved athame flashing in my hand. In a few quick motions, I carved the death symbol on the part of his chest that wasn't bloodied from bullets. An electric charge immediately ran through the air of the circle. Hairs stood up on the back of my neck, and I could smell ozone, like just before a storm.

He screamed and leapt forward, renewed by rage or adrenaline or whatever else these creatures ran on. But it was too late for him. He was marked and wounded. I was ready. In another mood, I might have simply banished him to the Otherworld; I tried not to kill if I didn't have to. But that sexual suggestion had just been out of line. I was pissed off now. He'd go to the world of death, straight to Persephone's gate.

I fired again to slow him, my aim a bit off with the left hand but still good enough to hit him. I had already traded the athame for the wand. This time, I didn't draw on the power from this plane. With well-practiced ease, I let part of my consciousness slip this world. In moments, I reached the crossroads to the Otherworld. That was an easy transition; I did it all the time. The next crossover was a little harder, especially with me being weakened from the fight, but still nothing I couldn't do automatically. I kept my own spirit well outside of the land of death, but I touched it and sent that connection through the wand. It sucked him in, and his face twisted with fear.

“This is not your world,” I said in a low voice, feeling the power burn through me and around me. “This is not your world, and I cast you out. I send you to the black gate, to the lands of death where you can either be reborn or fade to oblivion or burn in the flames of hell. I really don't give a shit.
Go.”

He screamed, but the magic caught him. There was a trembling in the air, a buildup of pressure, and then it ended abruptly, like a deflated balloon. The keres was gone too, leaving only a shower of gray sparkles that soon faded to nothing.

Silence. I sank to my knees, exhaling deeply. My eyes closed a moment, as my body relaxed and my consciousness returned to this world. I was exhausted but exultant too. Killing him had felt good. Heady, even. He'd gotten what he deserved, and I had been the one to deal it out.

Minutes later, some of my strength returned. I stood and opened the circle, suddenly feeling stifled by it. I put my tools and weapons away and went to find Montgomery.

“Your shoe's been exorcised,” I told him flatly. “I killed the ghost.” No point in explaining the difference between a keres and a true ghost; he wouldn't understand.

He entered the room with slow steps, picking up the shoe gingerly. “I heard gunshots. How do you use bullets on a ghost?”

I shrugged. It hurt from where the keres had slammed my shoulder to the wall. “It was a strong ghost.”

He cradled the shoe like one might a child and then glanced down with disapproval. “There's blood on the carpet.”

“Read the paperwork you signed. I assume no responsibility for damage incurred to personal property.”

With a few grumbles, he paid up—in cash—and I left. Really, though, he was so stoked about the shoe, I probably could have decimated the office.

In my car, I dug out a Milky Way from the stash in my glove box. Battles like that required immediate sugar and calories. As I practically shoved the candy bar into my mouth, I turned on my cell phone. I had a missed call from Lara.

Once I'd consumed a second bar and was on I-10 back to Tucson, I dialed her.

“Yo,” I said.

“Hey. Did you finish the Montgomery job?”

“Yup.”

“Was the shoe really possessed?”

“Yup.”

“Huh. Who knew? That's kind of funny too. Like, you know, lost souls and soles in shoes…”

“Bad, very bad,” I chastised. Lara might be a good secretary, but there was only so much I could be expected to put up with. “So what's up? Or were you just checking in?”