Hearts of Darkness (5 page)

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Authors: Kira Brady

BOOK: Hearts of Darkness
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“Unbound, the werewolf will be even less stable,” Jace said. “Do you want to reinstate the kill order?”
Corbette's gaze shifted to the young blond woman to his right, but his fiancée stared out the rain-streaked window, oblivious to their conversation. She watched the short-lived humans scurrying through the haunted downtown streets. What could they possibly have that she wanted? He turned back to Jace. “No, there are too few of us left. We can't afford the mistakes of the past.”
His joke of a father had traded Kivati lands and their sacred duty to protect the Gate for a nickel of gin and a pair of twos. Under his watch, the blood had been diluted. Their ancient enemies—the Drekar—had moved in. The Kivati had been scattered like grain beneath a scythe. A territory that once stretched from northern California to Alaska was now split into small, disparate enclaves in and around the Cascade Mountains. Worse, under his father's rule the Gate that separated the worlds had been cursed and cracked. How much longer could it hold?
Corbette would wrest his people back from the brink. No half-mad Wolf would get in his way. “Every man has a weakness.” He didn't look at Lucia, but he was keenly aware of her delicate fragrance floating through the trapped confines of the car. Orchids, he thought. A fragile bloom, suitable to her elegant beauty but not to the steel-spined leader she must become if she were to be his mate. “We must find his.”
Jace's nostrils flared. He favored direct attack over the subtle manipulation of pawns on the game board.
“The Wolf is Kivati. He is blood. Some thread of honor must lie at his core, however decrepit it has become.” Corbette's anger was a living thing, heating the air of the car. With effort, he restrained it, before Lucia saw in his eyes the iridescent purple light of a killing edge.
She wasn't paying attention. Her narrow upturned nose hovered next to the glass. Her gloved hands were clasped tightly in the folds of her skirt. He glanced out her window to see what had put the wrinkle in her elegant brow. “Penny for your thoughts, Lady Lucia?”
Lucia started, as if she had forgotten he was sitting next to her, though the crisp sleeve of his coal-black suit brushed the edge of her navy sailing gown. It ticked him off. He certainly hadn't forgotten her. The corset pushed up her small perfect breasts. Lace covered them just enough to be proper, but allowed a tantalizing hint of curve and cleavage beneath.
“Forgive me, my lord.” She tucked an errant blond curl behind her ear. “My thoughts wandered.”
Buttons ran from her slender waist up to a high lace neck. In his mind he slipped them free, one by one, to expose her alabaster skin.
Damn propriety
, the animal in him growled. But the man knew his tenuous hold on his people and his world was a wing tip away from chaos. He couldn't afford to let down his guard. In a month he could slip those buttons free and flip up her skirts as he liked. Thirty long days. Patience might kill him.
“You seem fascinated by the humans,” Jace commented.
She blushed. “Just wondering why they can't feel the Land of the Dead hovering all around us. The Aether is so . . .
alive
, but they insist it doesn't exist. I don't get it.”
The Aether was a weightless liquid that filled space, allowing for the propagation of light, electricity, and magic. It separated the worlds and wove the fabric of time. Human scientists from Newton to Einstein had accepted it in one form or another, but more recent theorists had decided the concept was “unnecessary” to explain their measured phenomena. Their brains were too narrow-minded to envision Aether in its entirety. It required an acceptance of the divine, and to humans, faith and science were oil and water.
“Self-deluding idiots,” Jace muttered.
“You're more sensitive than most,” Corbette told Lucia. Sensitive, but lacking the ability to manipulate the Aether like she should. He could feel the power inside her, trapped like a hive of angry bees. So much potential. What would it take to unleash it? He would enjoy finding out.
After
they were wed.
“But solar flares—I just don't think they're a strong enough explanation for the electricity winking out here and there. Some of them see ghosts. Surely some of them must know the truth?” she asked.
“You expect too much from humans.”
“Besides, solar storms do take out satellites, radio communications, and power grids,” Jace said. “It happens in other cities around the world. It's not too unbelievable.”
“More believable than ghosts?” she asked.
Jace snorted.
“What rational human believes in ghosts?” Corbette gave a half smile. “I can't explain the stupidity of—” He broke off as he felt the subtle tap of wings against the iron bulwark of his mind. Reaching out across the Aether, he located the crow flying above them and connected to the bird's consciousness. The vision slid into his mind as if he were seeing it himself, the focus clear and bright, but the edges murky. A city street appeared below him, and he knew the crow had watched the scene from a wire overhead. He recognized the sculpture park with its monument to lifeless art, the twisted metal trees and bloated technological instruments standing testament to the barren wasteland of modern imagination.
Below him, Mayor White stood grinning in front of a giant boring machine. The metal blades glistened in the flashes from the press. White waved to the crowd and cut a crimson ribbon in front of the machine. A bead of sweat slipped over his temple. His gaze flicked to the crows overhead, and something ugly flashed over his face.
So. The poor fool had finally done it. After months of courting both sides, the profit-hungry mayor had thrown in his lot with Norgard and his hell-bred kin. Going behind the back of the Kivati-controlled city council, White had approved that idiotic and dangerous drilling project. He assumed that Norgard would return his loyalty. Maybe for a time. As long as he played the fool, Norgard would keep his wallet heavy.
The project would build a light rail tunnel deep beneath the city streets from Ballard to Redmond, passing through downtown. White claimed light rail was the green solution to the city's traffic woes, but it conveniently connected Norgard's main bases of operation. He claimed burying the line prevented a costly land grab; the economic and environmental benefits outweighed the potential disruption of historical and religious artifacts hidden in the earth. Corbette seriously doubted Norgard had any interest in saving the environment. There was another reason the Drekar Regent wanted to dig through the churned bones of Kivati ancestors and into the secret lair of the Spider.
What is your plan, Norgard?
Corbette wondered. He let the vision go as the drill came roaring to life. Lucia's anxious face clicked back into place in his sight.
“Another attack?” she asked.
“No. White has started digging his tunnel.”
“Into
her
caves?” Lucia whispered, both afraid and awed by the ancient being that inhabited that sacred earth. Corbette had been a child when the Spider had last prophesied the fate of the race. Now, after a lifetime of waiting, the subject of that prophecy sat in front of him, her blue eyes solemn, elegance and innocence wrapped around every last square inch of her lovely body. Even her name seemed perfect for her role: Lucia, light bearer. Lucia, harbinger of destiny.
“Don't let it worry you,” he said. There would be blood tonight, he would see to it. “But I'm sorry.” He spoke the words even though Lucia knew them by heart. “I must take a rain check on our sailing trip.”
Something flashed over her porcelain features—relief or disappointment, he didn't know. He didn't have time to find out.
“Jace, call a meeting.”
“Kai—?”
“Fill your brother in on the situation. Norgard thinks he's pulled one over on us. We need to move fast while he's busy gloating.”
“There's his assembly plant in Kent—”
“Not now,” he said. Lucia didn't seem like she was listening, but he didn't want death weighing on her conscience. Whatever Drekar target they chose, there would be human casualties.
He ordered the driver to take them home. The familiar weight of responsibility adjusted itself on his broad shoulders. He reminded himself that he was doing this for Lucia so that their future children could grow up in a world free from Drekar violence and human stupidity.
A world they could rule in peace.
 
 
Hanging half out of the driver's side door, Hart push-started his old diesel Mercedes down the steep hill toward the churning sea below. He pulled himself into the moving car and released the clutch. The engine turned, sputtering like an ancient crone, and coughed to life.
Kayla sat in the passenger seat. Her fingers were white-knuckled on the armrests. “What's wrong with your car?”
“Nothing's wrong with it.” It was half-truth. His car drove fine, as long as there were no ghosts around. This close to the morgue, electricity rarely worked. Humans had a lot of explanations for the blackouts. The city blamed lack of funds for their neglected power grid. Scientists blamed an abnormal patch in the earth's magnetic field that triggered solar storms, which in turn caused electromagnetic pulses that fried electrical circuits. Conspiracy theorists blamed the government's nuclear bomb testing over Puget Sound, which also caused EMP. They were partially right—EMP was to blame, but most humans would never accept that ghosts were the cause. The few “crazies” who tried to investigate the paranormal in Seattle quickly learned to keep their yaps shut.
Whatever the imagined cause, Seattleites—human and nonhuman alike—had learned to cope with the electricity problem. They rode bikes and drove old diesels. Environmental, yes, but practical too. With a diesel, he could start his engine by running his car downhill; no electric spark required. If he parked on the flat, he was screwed. Fortunately, downtown was one steep hill after another. The entire city stank of French fries because of all the homemade biodiesel. Importing companies made fast money shipping mechanical tools from other cities' antique shops. Hand-push lawn mowers, vintage rotary egg beaters, and typewriters were a real hit.
The Kivati had their fancy steam cars. Biodiesel fueled the fire that heated water for steam. They could start on the flat no problem in a battlefield full of ghosts. Steam, wind, and the sun powered most of the fancy machines that did their dirty work, all designed and built by Kivati hands. But the stingy bastards didn't share their technology. Not with the humans, and not with the likes of him.
The drive north to Desiree's apartment took half an hour. Seattle crowded a narrow strip of land, squeezed between the salty Puget Sound to the west and the freshwater Lake Washington to the east. The Ship Canal cut through the earth like a gouge from the Sky God's staff, connecting the two bodies of water. Salt meets fresh. West meets east. A dividing line splitting gritty downtown from the peaceful residential neighborhoods of the north. Four drawbridges and two soaring freeways spanned the canal like gear and steel rainbows.
Just north of the Ship Canal, Desiree's apartment crouched beneath two massive fir trees. It had a beaten-down look, with old fieldstone siding, missing shingles, and a slick patina of moss. It clashed with the surrounding artsy neighborhood, where steel sculpture clung to buildings like metal spiders. Corner coffee shops abounded, each proclaiming, WE HAVE LOKI CHOCOLATES! in the window.
Hart pulled into the parking lot and shut off the engine.
“I'm not even going to ask how you knew where my sister lives,” Kayla said.
“Babe, I'm a thief and a murderer. You do the math.”
She swallowed, but shook off her fear. “Right.”
Part of him admired her persistence. Part of him wondered what god he had pissed off to get stuck with her trailing his ass. She shouldn't trust him. The beast prowled around the barrier of his skin. Growling. Growing violent by the minute. It had Kayla in its sights. Her scent filled its nostrils. Her lush curves beckoned. Hart didn't know what the beast would do if let free, but he couldn't take any chances. The curse hung about his heart, heavy as the gold manacles that bound his upper arms. Blood coated his memories—the drapes of the small apartment hanging tattered and dripping red-brown, the sodden carpet squishing beneath his feet, the red stain creeping up the sides of his white sneakers. His fault.
He unleashed his claws into his thigh. The jagged pain brought him back to the present. The Lady help him. He had to find the necklace, and he needed Kayla alive to do it. Desiree Friday had left her sister clues to the hiding spot, he was sure of it. He would make Kayla find the thing and he would steal it from her. Wouldn't be the worst black spot on his record. Not by far.
Opening the car door, he pushed himself out and almost fell.
“Let's get you cleaned and taped up,” Kayla said, sounding genuinely concerned. “You won't make it farther in that condition. You must be exhausted.”
“I'm fine,” he snapped. He was in rough shape, but a little R and R would do it. He didn't want to waste the Drekar blood he had left; Norgard extracted too high a price for refills. Inside him the beast crouched, ready to lash out if she made any threatening moves toward him.

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