Hidden Blade (The Soul Eater Book 1) Read online

  “Whatever personal crisis you’re having,” she shouted through the closed door, “I don’t give a shit. I’m gonna count to three. One, two—”

  I wrenched the door open. “What?!”

  She recoiled, just a fraction, and then her eyes darkened and her brow cut a jagged scowl. “You fucked up.”

  I laughed because it was all I had left. “You’ll have to narrow it down.”

  Barging past her, I retreated to my office and dropped into my chair. I’d planned to check my emails, but I couldn’t remember why. I had no problem recalling how blood looked in a crystal glass though. How it clung to the sides, thick and dark, almost black.

  Shu wisely loitered in my doorway. If she came any closer, I’d likely hurl my letter opener at her.

  “That job,” she said. “The kids who summoned something nasty in midtown? Someone had a hobby telescope pointed at the rooftop.”

  A little static shock of magic fizzled through my fingers. The girl’s soul had been light and made of brilliance—innocent but for a few dark smudges. Had I weighed her, I’d have found her worthy. She would have rested for all eternity in the afterlife, where she belonged. But I hadn’t weighed her. She’d never gotten that chance.

  “Ace!” Shu barked. “Did you hear me?”

  She’d tasted sweet. I could feel the light in her still, feel it dancing at my fingertips, plucking on pleasure. My body buzzed with life, magic, power. It had been so long…so long… I’d held out. I’d resisted.

  “You’re wanted for questioning in connection with the murders of those three kids.”

  “Three?” I asked. There had been four.

  “A fourth—Jason Montgomery—is missing,” she said, as if reading my thoughts.

  My mind sharpened, focus narrowing. “Does the PD have my name?”

  “No, just a description. It’s blown up on the internet: the guy with the coat and sword. They’re talking about you like you’re some kind of vigilante bent on protecting the city from the rising dead.”

  They wouldn’t say that if they knew I’d spent the morning washing off the blood of an innocent girl.

  “You need to lay low. No more jobs. No more sword. Ditch the coat and wear a hat or something.”

  She was worried. Not for me, but for her own hide.

  “I’ll find the kid,” I said. “He can tell the cops his pal went nuts and killed them all and then did himself in on the roof. He’s terrified. He’ll tell the cops what I tell him to tell them.”

  One of Shu’s dark eyebrows crawled higher. “And the vigilante?”

  “Urban legend. It was snowing. Whatever footage that’s circulating, it’ll be virtually indecipherable.”

  She considered it, but that scowl of hers wasn’t getting any softer. “Let the cops find the kid.”

  I could let it go. It wasn’t like I didn’t already have enough on my mind, but I hated loose ends—like snakes, they tended to come back around and bite me in the ass—and Jason Montgomery was one hell of a loose end. At the very least, I needed to have a chat with him.

  “Fine.” Shu sighed, seeing the determination on my face and likely sensing now was not the time to argue. “Don’t get caught. It’s bad enough I have to spend every day working with you. I’d rather not be stuck in a prison cell with your righteous ass for the next fifty years.”

  “Feeling’s mutual.”

  Find the kid. I turned my mind to that and forcibly denied that morning’s events, pushing them way back where all the darkness of my past hid.

  My cell chimed. I read Cujo’s name and waved Shu away. “Hey, Cujo—”

  “Funny thing. There’s a video online of a guy in a long coat with a badass broadsword. You wouldn’t know anything about that?”

  “Sounds like a freak.” I grinned, grateful I could call Cujo a friend—one of few. “What kind of idiot carries a sword around New York?”

  “Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Anyway, that’s not why I’m calling. I looked into that bundle of joy of yours. Nineteen years old. She goes by the name Chuck.”

  “What kind of name is that?”

  Cujo paused. “Do you want me to answer that? Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

  “I earned my nickname, same as you.”

  “I got my name because a crackhead bit me and I lost it. Tell me again how you got the name Ace?”

  “Cheating at cards,” I lied. He knew it was a lie too, which was why he kept asking. Ace didn’t always have good connotations. Go back far enough, a few centuries, and it was another word for bad luck, or a curse. “Tell me about Chuck.”

  “No parents. She was abandoned at a firehouse as a six-month-old. In and out of foster homes since she was nine. A stint on the streets. She has herself a rap sheet for drug possession and theft, which was how I was able to trace her so fast.”

  As he talked, that niggling, little voice of truth chipped away at my denials. Cujo was right, the apple never fell far, and Chuck’s background sounded all too familiar. “Cut to the chase, Cujo.”

  “Difficult to know if she’s showing any unusual talents, but her name appears in the files of a few unresolved homicide cases. The victims were street douches. No witnesses. No charges. She was brought in but clammed up every time. Can’t say homicide would have wasted much manpower there, but your girl could have been caught up in something that went sideways, and if she does have talents, that might be how some nasty folks got themselves dead. From what I hear, little godlings often make mistakes that end with people dying.”

  Ancient gods made mistakes too. I squeezed my eyes closed and pinched the bridge of my nose. A lot of things were my fault, but not this, not her. The girl’s upbringing was all on Bast. I hadn’t known about her. I didn’t get the chance to help.

  “Ace?”

  “Uh-huh, still here.”

  “Short of a DNA test, I can’t tell you much more.”

  “Do you know where she is?”

  “There’s a shelter in Queens. I’ll email you the address. The shelter offers support for pregnant women in crisis.”

  “Okay, thanks, Cujo. Hey, the missing kid, Jason Montgomery. Let me know if you get any leads.”

  “Funny,” he mock-whispered. “The sword guy, they say he can walk through Hell unburned.”

  I laughed. “It’s not the fire that burns, my friend. It’s the gods you gotta watch out for. Thanks for this, and I owe you one.”

  “I’m keeping tabs. You owe me at least fifty. But sure, why not? Gotta get my kicks somewhere. Stay safe, Ace.”

  Chapter 7

  The snow in the street had turned to slush and refrozen in piles along the sidewalks outside the Goddess of the Rising Sun Women’s Shelter. The name alone was a neon sign to anyone paying attention. Bast had many names, all the gods did, and this shelter was one of hers.

  More people were filing through the doors than I’d expected. Inside, the staff served hot food and offered somewhere warm and dry for the cold and hungry to rest. I made my way through the line, quickly coming to the conclusion that blending in with roughly forty pregnant women wouldn’t be easy.

  “Can I help you?” A matronly woman stepped into my path. She was thin as a rake, gnarled like a tree, and had fierce eyes. She looked frail, but she’d bring out the claws if I threatened her or hers in any way.

  “I’m looking for someone. A girl. Her name’s—”

  “Are you with the police?” She looked me over, suspicion in her words.

  “No, I—”

  “Then I can’t tell you anything. As you can imagine, we get a lot of men through these doors looking for their wives, daughters, friends. Our women are often here to get away from such men.”

  “I just—”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but you’ll have to leave.”

  “It’s okay, Roseanne.” Bast settled a hand on the woman’s narrow shoulder. “I know him.” She nodded at me. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t get into any trouble.”

  According to
Cujo’s recent information, I was already in trouble.

  Bast led me to a quiet corner at the back of the hall, and before I could ask any of the questions bubbling in my head, she produced a list from her biker jacket pocket and handed it over. “There are many more women at risk. I’ve narrowed down the names to those who are pregnant and currently living in Manhattan.”

  I scanned the names. “I’m not here for them.”

  “Our daughter has my protection.”

  “That hasn’t worked out too well for those who’ve already died.”

  She set her jaw and narrowed her finely lined dark eyes. “I can’t be everywhere at once. The women on that list need your help.”

  Turning my back to Bast, I scanned the hall but couldn’t see any girl I’d recognize as Chuck. I just wanted to see her. If I saw her, I’d know if she was my blood. Wasn’t that how it worked with children? You just knew, as if there was a connection starting from the DNA out. “Where is she?”

  “You believe me now?”

  “I’m withholding judgment.”

  Her hand settled on my shoulder, and her fingers applied enough pressure to tempt me to face her. The last time she’d touched me—two decades ago—it had been with a slap across my face and a knee to my balls. I had deserved it, which was probably why it still hurt.

  Her big, dark eyes looked apologetic. Bast never looked sorry. She was made of steel and reverence and had once been worshipped as the Great Protector. She didn’t give an inch in anything, but these deaths had gotten to her. They undermined her strength like nothing else could. And looking into her eyes, I knew why. She’d once lost a legion of her most feared and revered warriors—four thousand women all under her protection. Trained by her, loved by her, and all slaughtered because of her allegiance during the last great sundering, when the old world had fallen and the gods lost their combined power.

  “I didn’t tell you,” Bast said with a sigh, “because she’s better off without us.”

  She was right, and it should have been that simple, but an irrational anger whipped through me, sweeping all reason aside. “It wasn’t your choice to make alone.”

  The venom behind my words surprised me, and by Bast’s widening eyes, her too. She hadn’t expected me to care and neither had I.

  “You were never supposed to know,” she explained, saying it softly as though that might lessen the impact. “That’s how it should have stayed.”

  I stepped in closer and lowered my voice. “Do you know the life she’s had? She’s been alone, on the streets, unwanted.”

  Bast bowed her head, sending her gaze through the floor. Her shoulders dropped, and I watched the fight fade from the eyes of the strongest woman I’d ever known.

  “But it’s a life.” She leaned a shoulder against the wall, dislodging flakes of paint. “Nobody knows, Ace. If Osiris knew…if Seth knew…what kind of life would she have had as a pawn among our kind?”

  It didn’t take much effort to recall how Osiris had flexed his godly muscles with me. If he discovered I had a daughter, he’d have a whole new array of horrific ways to torture me, the girl, and Bast.

  “She had a choice,” Bast said, her voice regaining some of its steel. “Every day she has choices, and they’re hers to make.” She looked over the murmuring crowd. “Choice was the only gift I could give her.”

  Her words snagged at my heart, where a terrible weight clung. There was a soul-deep longing in my ex-wife’s eyes. She’d given up her daughter, not because she didn’t want her, but to keep her safe.

  I followed Bast’s far-eyed gaze through the crowd and over the heads of strangers until I found the girl at the end of the far table. She was hunched over her bowl of soup as though expecting someone to snatch it away from her. She had Bast’s straight black hair, but Chuck’s was messy, like she had cut it herself. Defined cheekbones gave her a fierce beauty, with lips that seemed too perfect to snarl. Her eyes though—even from across the hall I could see how her eyes entranced. Long, dark lashes around soul-seer eyes speckled with gold. She held the weight of the world in her eyes. To think she might have my power, the ability to see the worth of someone’s soul and the terrible knowledge that came with it. Nineteen years old. Nineteen years was nothing. A blink. But her soul would already be old.

  “She looks like her mom.” My voice came out flat and disinterested and didn’t reflect the turmoil raging inside.

  “Not the eyes.”

  She’s beautiful, I thought, but was her soul like her mother’s or mine?

  Bast had done the right thing. Chuck could never know about us or the rest of everything. My ex-wife had kept the truth from me, as we would now keep it from Chuck. She’d hate us for it. She’d rage that it wasn’t our choice to make, that she deserved to know, and she’d be right. My first lesson in parenting: you can’t win.

  I looked down at the list of pregnant women Bast wanted me to protect. One name had a line scored through it.

  “Her body was found last night,” Bast explained.

  “All right.” I folded up the note and tucked it into my pocket. “But you and me need to talk. Not here. We—”

  A hail of shouts erupted from across the hall. Bast launched into the crowd, her black-clad figure disappearing among the crush of fleeing people. I pushed forward, stepped up onto the nearest table, and saw Chuck dash out the door, followed by what looked like a large, pointed-eared Doberman. Hopefully that’s what all these witnesses would think—a dog attack. I knew otherwise. The jackals were search-and-destroy demons from my old neighborhood.

  Behind the demon, a large liquid streak of black—vaguely resembling a big cat—followed. Bastet.

  I jumped from tabletop to tabletop and skidded outside in time to see three figures carving their way down the sidewalk. Chuck veered left, out of sight around a corner. The demon and Bast followed, seconds behind. Demons in broad daylight and I didn’t have my sword. Just great.

  I caught up with Bast—in her black-panther form—at the bottom of an extended fire escape ladder. Too bad big cats couldn’t climb ladders. She circled, massive black paws padding in the filthy snow, and snuffled her nose against the slush, picking up the scent trail.

  “I’m going up,” I told her. “Stay out of sight.”

  She gave her glossy, black coat an all-over shake and planted her rump on the sidewalk, in full view of anyone who happened to turn down the street. There was no mistaking a black panther for a house cat.

  “You sit there like that and animal control will be all over you.”

  She yawned, showing me perfect rows of man-eating teeth inside her skull-crushing jaw, and then rumbled some sort of “bring it” growl.

  “Fine, get yourself noticed. I’ll come see you when you’re in the city zoo.” I started up the ladder, followed by her low, bubbling growl.

  Chuck was either smart or lucky. Climbing the fire escape had deterred the jackal, but it wouldn’t stop it. They were excellent trackers. The beast was likely already finding another way into the building.

  I climbed up a few flights and spotted drapes flapping from an open window.

  “Chuck?” I hissed, sticking my head inside. Something large and black loomed to my right. I shot out a hand and caught the pan before it could crack my skull open.

  Chuck’s eyes flashed, and then she was off, dashing around a couch and heading for the door.

  “Hey, wait. The dem—the dog—”

  The door flung open and a hundred pounds of jackal demon slammed into Chuck, sending her sprawling. I lunged forward in time to see Chuck kick the jackal backward, across the wooden floor, and scrabble to her feet. That had taken some strength, the inhuman kind.

  Inserting myself between jackal and girl, I brandished the pan and growled, “Think twice.”

  The jackal sank its claws into the timber floor and sprang. I swung and belted the pan across its muzzle with enough force to kill a man. It tumbled and whimpered but was on its feet in seconds, hollow eyes aflame a
nd aimed at me.

  Alysdair would have come in handy right about then. I could, of course, unleash the renewed magic bubbling in my veins, but that would require a lot of explaining. As things stood, a few lies about an escaped exotic wolf from the city zoo would explain most of the events so far. If I spouted spells, Chuck would ask questions I wasn’t ready to answer.

  The jackal’s lips rippled over vicious teeth. It lowered its head and planted one forepaw forward and then the other.

  I focused my gaze. “You clearly don’t know who you’re messing with.”

  Its pointed ears flattened against its head.

  Chuck ran for the door and the jackal hunched to launch after her.

  I saw my chance, kicked the door closed, and flung out my left hand. “Hurzd!” Hold!

  The demon’s approached stalled. It whipped its head up and recognition sparked in its rippling eyes. Down went its haunches and its head, until its belly touched the floor. Shame softened its so-sorry eyes, as if I’d come home to find my couch and slippers all chewed up.

  “It’s too late for that.”

  I tossed the pan aside, curled the fingers of my outstretched hand closed, and whispered old words. They tumbled from my lips—no pauses, no respite—and as they built, power trembled through my body, rekindling old urges. Without Alysdair, I was out of options. This was the only way.

  The jackal started whimpering again. It had been years since I’d spoken the spell. Today I’d wielded the magic twice, and the day wasn’t over yet.

  ‘Tra k-dae amcru-kak sra ksork, kosec amcru-kak esk kassrakamsk, omd kae kuir amcru-kak aeuirk.” The sky encloses the stars, magic encloses its settlements, and my soul encloses yours.

  The ancient words sounded harsh and guttural, the language forgotten by all but the oldest of us.

  My eyes locked with the jackal’s and pinned it, leaving it quivering in its own piss. The words lost their form but not their meaning. I dug deeper into the beast’s eyes, the spell spiraling between us, and deeper into the writhing darkness that made up its soul. Its spirit fought, black talons slicing, and distantly it screamed its death wail, but the soul was mine.