They will separate you from your purpose, lure you to your doom. How many times had his superior told him that?
A row of bushes between him and the house rustled. Another enemy lying in wait? The Valkyrie had plenty of adversaries. And they had no idea danger lurked so close--
The front doors burst open; a woman stormed outside.
Regin.
He released a sharp breath.
Those wild braids held her hair back from her face, revealing all her delicate features. Her cheekbones were high and defined, her nose pert. Blond brows drew together over her vivid amber eyes, and her full lips were parted.
She radiated a pure golden light.
A feeling of recognition swept over him. At once, the near crippling tension he'd endured for decades began to ebb. Why? How?
She wasn't the first unearthly beauty they'd tracked--the Order's island compound was filled with them--so he would've thought himself prepared for her comeliness. But he feared she might be the most beautiful.
At least to me.
"Make a hole, bitches!" she yelled to the wraiths, tossing one of them ... a braid of hair? When the red-robed beings parted, she strode down the steps, her thick-heeled boots clicking.
Out on the lawn, she stopped and cocked her head, drawing those swords with a lethal grace. One of her pointed ears was visible and clearly twitching as she scanned the night. She would see Declan ... would sense him.
He was about to slip back when the bushes nearby rustled once more.
Without a second's thought she dove into them, pouncing on whatever skulked there. A moment later, a ghoul's severed head came flying out. When she bounded from the shrubs, her swords were already sheathed and twigs protruded from those haphazard braids. She reached up, felt them, then left them there with a shrug.
When a trio of other women staggered out onto the front porch, Regin held up the head and made an exaggerated curtsy. They cheered drunkenly. Witches, no doubt. They were the Valkyrie's allies and notorious drunks.
One laughed, tripped over her own feet into a pratfall, then laughed again.
Regin turned back to face his direction. With her skin glowing brighter and her expression animated, she punted the ghoul's head like a football, then shaded her eyes melodramatically. As it sailed far above him toward a nearby swamp, she cried, "It. Might. Go. All. The. ... Way!"
She cannot be one thousand years old.
The witches cheered again.
That task completed, she plucked a sat-phone from a holster on her belt. She texted something, her fingers so fast they were a blur, then strolled over to her car and hopped inside. The engine purred when she started it. She pulled up in front of the house, honking the horn and rolling down the windows.
"Nix!" she called. "Get your ass out here!" She said something to the witches in a lower voice, and they howled with laughter. But when Regin turned from them, her easy grin faltered, her demeanor preoccupied.
Another Valkyrie sauntered from that madhouse, a black-haired one with vacant eyes, cradling what looked like a paralyzed bat in one arm like a babe.
She had to be Nix the Ever-Knowing, a powerful soothsayer. Though she looked to be in her mid-twenties, she was one of the oldest--and most crazed--immortals on record.
She wore a long, flowing skirt, cowboy boots, and a T-shirt that read VALKYRIE in big block letters with an arrow pointing up at her face.
Flaunting themselves. The arrogance. Christ, how he hated them.
She too proffered a braid to the wraiths--a toll of some sort?--then joined Regin in the car, blowing a kiss to the witches. The two Valkyrie pulled out, some asinine song blaring from the car stereo--the only lyrics were "Da-da-da." They bobbed their heads in unison to the music.
As they passed, he drew back into the brush, his heart thundering. But the dark-haired one turned, looking directly at him with eerie golden eyes.
Just as the hair on the back of his neck stood up, the soothsayer mouthed, You're late.
Regin the Radiant sensed some enemy was hot on her ass as she sped down dark country roads.
But she simply didn't have time for a fight to the death just now. Regin had to reach Lucia before it was too late.
She adjusted the rearview mirror. "Are we being followed?"
Nix nodded happily. "Usually." She tapped her chin with her free hand. "You know, you think you don't like it, but actually you'll miss it when it's gone."
Regin scowled at her sister, doing her damnedest to ignore Bertil--the bat Nix carried. It'd been a gift from a secret admirer. "Seeing as we're on our way to the Loreport, you probably should tell me where I'm flying out to tonight." Nix's last report on Lucia had her in the Amazon, of all places.
"Hmm. Should I remember?"
"Me. Meeting up with Lucia. Who's gearing up to slay Cruach, her worst nightmare." Crom Cruach was the ancient horned god of human sacrifices and cannibalism--and the monster who'd tricked Lucia into leaving Valhalla. Every five hundred years, he tried to escape his prison. For the last two times, Lucia--with Regin as her trusty wingman--had forcibly denied his parole. "Any of this ringing a bell, Nix?"
Blankness.
"Gods, I don't have time for this!" Lucia was out there alone; Cruach was rising nowish. And Nix was spacing?
"Don't shriek," Nix chided. "You'll hurt Bertil's ears, and he needs them for echolocation." As she stroked her new pet in a love-him-and-pet-him-and-call-him-George kind of way, her eyes were even more vacant than usual. Her visions of the future had been hitting her rapid-fire lately, and they were taking a toll.
Assholes were laying odds in the Lore betting book that Nucking Futs Nix wouldn't make it through this Accession with any remaining sanity intact. And there wasn't a whole lot remaining.
"Don't fret, love," Nix said reassuringly.
"How can I not fret ..." Regin trailed off. "You're talking to the freaking bat!"
She tickled its belly with a claw. "Coochy-coo." Regin swore the bat smacked its lips with contentment, snuggling into her arm.
Had Nix been feeding that little winged rat her blood? "Don't you know that those things spread Cujos? Damn, Nixie, you're getting worse. Even more cray-cray than usual."
She briefly glanced up. "That's fair."
"Uh-huh." Regin downshifted, tires squealing as she swerved to dodge a roadkill-bound possum.
"But what about your own cray-crayness, Regin? You've been behaving very badly of late. Getting high on intoxispells and picking fights. You are acting out, and it simply must stop unless you invite me to join in."
Also fair. But what else was Regin supposed to do? A year ago, she and Lucia had undertaken a badass mission to discover a way to defeat the unkillable Cruach forever. Instead of merely imprisoning him. They'd traveled all over the world together, risking their lives.
In other words, good times. But then Prince Garreth MacRieve, Lucia's werewolf admirer, had started following her everywhere, sticking his nose where it didn't belong. Regin's solution? Euthanasia.
Lucia's solution to Regin's solution? Leave her behind when she was nursing a hangover.
Abandoned me like last year's wardrobe. Regin's claws dug into the steering wheel. After a millennium of never leaving each other's side. But last year's wardrobe is determined to make a comeback.
"Nix, you promised you'd tell me where Luce is if I did everything you asked me. I cleaned your room. I took your Bentley to the shop after you went off-roading again. And I put in hours at the Lore foundling house with those little punks." Regin had begun to call it the Lorphanage and predicted it'd stick. "I need to keep moving anyway. You know he's returning soon."
Aidan. With his heart-stopping smile and big, possessive hands. Though she longed to see her Viking in any reincarnation, she'd decided that he might actually live a full life if he never found her.
Nix sighed. "Have you truly given up all hope of finding a way to be with him?"
Regin glanced over at her, trying not to feel even a slive
r of hope. "Any reason not to give up?"
"I believe my advice to you was 'Go find and bang your berserker.'"
"Huh. Well, see, I tried that, and it didn't quite work out for me." The last four times! "I just can't ... I'm not doing it again." The guilt got worse with each reincarnation. She was his doom, might as well deal the deathblow herself.
Aidan had been sword-struck in his first life, poisoned in his second, crushed during a shipwreck in his third. In his fourth, he'd been shot. All directly after she and his reincarnation had made love for the first time.
"Unless you can tell me things might be different this time?" Regin added. Damn, could she sound more desperate? But Nix helped other immortals with things like this. Why not me?
"What would you do to be with him, hmm? What would you sacrifice?"
"To break this curse, I would do just about any-thing."
"Just about?" After long, tense moments, Nix said, "I have no resolution to tell you." She couldn't foresee everything, wasn't all-knowing. Instead, she'd been dubbed the Ever-Knowing, because her visions had appeared without fail for three millennia.
"No resolution?" She hadn't expected Nix to pony up the answer to a thousand-year-old curse before Regin ran her next red light, but a crumb of hope would've been nice.
"No matter," Nix said. "You must find something to occupy yourself. There's more to life than destroying vampires."
"Right. Like destroying evil cannibal gods with Lucia," Regin said, proud of her segue.
"Always back to Lucia. You're exceedingly loyal to all your friends--even to your own detriment."
"Whatever. Loyalty's not a bad thing."
"It is when you leave heaven for it. It is when you have nothing to show for it. For instance, your some-some meter is reading empty. What about that nice leopard-shifter pack that wanted to date you? The benefits of a variety pack of males cannot be overstated."
If the rest of her sisters--or, gods forbid, her witch buddies--found out Regin hadn't been laid in nearly two hundred years, she'd never live it down. But like some stupid, sappy tool, she stayed faithful to Aidan and his reincarnates.
"Are you happy, Regin?"
She gave Nix the look her question deserved. "I'm the prankster, remember? The happy-go-lucky one. Ask anyone--they'll tell you I'm the cheeriest Valkyrie." She studied Nix's expression, this time noticing the shadows under her sister's eyes. "Why? Are you happy? You seem tired all the time." She didn't mention Nix's shrieking fits or disappearances, the bizarre eccentricities that only grew worse.
"I'm actively involved in steering the lives of thousands of beings. Which directly affects hundreds of thousands, which indirectly affects millions, with a ripple effect reaching billions. If someone said, 'It ain't easy being Nixie,' I wouldn't call him a liar."
Regin never really thought about the pressure Nix might be under. If the bat made her happy and calmed her, then ... Welcome to the family, Bertil.
In a prickly tone, Nix said, "And yet all anyone talks about is how the Enemy of Old is making power plays in the Lore. His power plays are child's play compared to mine."
Like Nix, Lothaire the Enemy of Old was one of the oldest and most powerful beings in the Lore. But the vampire was pure evil.
Nix sniffed, "Lothaire's no saner than I am."
As Regin opened her mouth to correct her, Nix amended, "Not much saner."
"There, now." Regin reached over to pat Nix's shoulder, but that bat hissed at her. "Why don't you hook up with someone, cozy away with a male for a few weeks? Weren't you seeing Mike Rowe?"
"I do miss that baritone-voiced rapscallion." Nix sighed. "But above all else, I'm a career woman. I've no time to dally."
"You could take just a short vacay, you know? See some sights." This might be one of the most lucid conversations I've ever had with Nix.
"I'm three thousand and three years old." Nix turned her vacant gaze out the window. "I've seen everything--" She sat up, eyes wild. "Squirrel!"
Strike lucid. "Hey, I know, you could come with me to find Lucia!"
"Maybe she doesn't want to be found just yet. You know she'll call you before the final showcase showdown with Cruach. For now, I've told you she's with MacRieve."
"With with? 'Cause I refuse to believe that yet another Valkyrie is making time with a werewolf." Much less the prim and proper Lucia.
The earthy Lykae revered sex and matehood; Lucia's magical skill with a bow was celibacy-based. If she got horizontal with a guy, she'd get kicked out of the Skathians, losing her archery forever. Which she needed to fight Cruach.
Hence the fleeing from MacRieve and all.
"Refuse or accept, I call 'em like I see 'em," Nix said. "Now, I have just one final task for you in the Quarter. I need you to go take out some adversaries. Make it an example killing."
"Example killing? Must be Tuesday. And you're not going to get in on the action?"
Nix blinked at her, aghast. "Who will sit Bertil?"
Regin groaned.
"Besides, I'm going to visit Loa's voodoo shop. She's having an Accession sale. Everything must go." She snickered.
"If I do this, will you finally tell me how to find Lucia?"
Another pet of the bat. "Don't worry, dearling. You'll fly out tonight. I promise."
"Are you talking to me or Bertil? Oh, me? Then, fine." She gunned the car even faster, speeding toward the Quarter. Lucia, I'm on my way ... just hold tight. "Tell me where my victims are."
TWO
Late for what? What the hell had the soothsayer meant? Declan was half-tempted to confront Nix, but she was not to be engaged, by his commander's order.
So for now he bided his time, pursuing the pair of Valkyrie. Since his Humvee stood no chance of keeping up with Regin's sports car and maniacal driving, he'd tracked her vehicle while he listened to their conversation--or what he could make out over the static. It was as if an electrical field had interrupted the relay.
What he'd heard had made little sense to Declan--talk of berserkers and cannibals and some absent sister. All he knew for certain was that Regin had been dispatched to kill.
Not who, not where, only why.
An example killing.
Historically her enemies were the vampires and certain species of demons. She might lead him to an entire nest of their kinds.
Once he'd reached the Quarter, he quickly spotted Regin's car, parked half on the street, half on the curb. A three-hundred-thousand-dollar car treated like junk. He'd throttle her just for abusing a car that fine.
He parked a couple of blocks away, then hurried into the crowd, searching for the two. Though he was several minutes behind, he swiftly reencountered Regin sauntering down Bourbon Street alone.
Easy enough to track her. She left a trail of slack-jawed men in her wake.
And they reacted not only to her glowing skin. The Valkyrie walked with an otherworldly sensuality, her hips swishing in those low-cut jeans, her plump arse attracting male gazes like moths to a flame. Some men adjusted obvious erections or rubbed cheeks recently slapped by outraged girlfriends.
As Declan trailed her, even he felt his shaft twitch, as if trying to stir for her--though his "medicine" would make that impossible.
To be aroused by a revolting detrus? When nothing else could tempt his deadened, scarred body?
While others in the Order called the immortals miscreats, short for miscreations, Declan often used the term detrus, the coarsest word they had for them.
It meant "vilest abomination."
That was how he saw them. How he'd always seen them, ever since he'd learned of their existence twenty years ago. ...
As the Valkyrie covered blocks, several beings approached her. More witches tried to coax her to go out with them. Two pointed-eared females--likely more Valkyrie--twirled swords, looking like they were primed for a battle and inviting Regin to come along.
She turned them all down with a grin, which promptly faded as she moved on.
Even more b
eings avoided her. Declan noticed several large males striding in the opposite direction when she came into sight; all wore hats of some type. No doubt behorned demons.
The field notes in her dossier reported that she was notoriously hard on demons. Whereas she simply ended vampires.
When she paused to text something on her cell phone, he drew back behind the cover of a nearby building. Then she gazed up with a peculiar look of sadness. That expression didn't fit her glowing, animated face, seeming as foreign as joy on a dying man's visage.
She stowed her phone back on her belt, then crossed to a back alley behind a five-story hotel. Without warning, she leapt to a balcony on the fourth floor, easily jogging along the rail before scaling to the roof. There he saw her hunch down at the edge, her ears twitching once more as she searched for her prey.
A perfect killer.
If it weren't for the Order, immortals would likely rule the earth.
Recently, several had made strikes against well-known human leaders around the world. His commander, Preston Webb, had told him, "Even the more moderate species are aggressing on us, son. Any tenuous truce has fallen by the wayside."
There truly was to be war between the species. As ever, Webb was right--
Declan lost sight of her. He hastened around to the front of the building, then cased the next, but he didn't see her on any of the roofs. Where the hell was she? He tore up and down streets, head craning.
In the distance, he heard what sounded like an explosion. Seconds later, he got a call on his earpiece from the leader of his backup unit. When Declan answered, he heard a war zone on the other end.
Yelling. Gunfire. Was that groaning metal?
"Magister, the target..."
"You weren't ordered to engage her!"
"Sir, she found us!"
His men were the prey. The example killing.
Fuck! He raced toward the sounds, turning a corner. He spotted her maybe half a mile away along a riverside quay downtown.
Never had he seen anything like the scene there.
One of their three black vans was on the bank of the river, upended on its grill. A second lay on its side in the street, with claw marks carved down its length. Bodies of slain soldiers sprawled all around it.