Her scream snapped Tommy out of it. “Kill her!”
The men raised their guns, but the SUV suddenly spun to the side and he briefly wondered if that man had moved it. With his bare hands.
No one was that strong.
They were both gone. Amsel and that man.
Tommy and his guys looked around, trying to see in the dark, the headlights illuminating a different part of their surroundings.
“Where are they?” Tommy barked. “Where the fuck are they?”
Feet hit Tommy in the head and he realized that Tesco was disappearing up into the sky.
They could hear Big Tessy’s screams before he came back down, landing hard on his face. Blood poured not only from where he’d landed but from his back and inside thighs. Damage he wouldn’t have suffered from a straight fall.
Their SUV spun, crashing into several of Tommy’s men, sending them flipping into the dark. Tommy could hear bones shattering, the groans of his men.
But there was no one behind the wheel of the SUV. It was like someone had pushed it. Again.
Backing up, feeling terror for the first time in decades, he held the gun out in front of him, flanked by the last two of his men.
Until they were gone, too, dragged off into the night.
Their screams . . . God, their screams.
“Hi, Tommy.”
He whirled around at Amsel’s voice, ready to fire, but her hands—now free—caught the weapon, turning it away. Pulling back her right hand, she rammed it into his forearm and he felt the bone shatter from that one hit.
Tommy dropped the gun and fell to his knees in the dirt.
Amsel kicked the gun aside and rested her hands on her hips. “Tommy, Tommy, Tommy.” she said, smiling, despite the bruises and blood on her face from the beating she’d taken. And that shot to the head. “You do know I’d forgotten about you, right?”
“You know him?” another voice asked. The big man from earlier.
He came out of the darkness looking really pissed off, Tommy’s last two men gripped tight by their throats. He tossed them aside like they were nothing.
“I do. From a long time ago. This is the man who killed me.”
“Don’t you mean tried to kill you?” Tommy asked, cradling his broken arm against his body.
Amsel crouched in front of him, one finger stroking his cheek. “No, no. You actually did kill me. But before my last breath, she came to me. A goddess named Skuld. And she made me an offer. Gave me a chance at a new life. A Second Life.”
The woman was insane. Tommy knew that now, but he could play along. “You just had to give her your soul, right?”
“Aww. It’s sweet you think I actually have one. But no.” She traced the line of his jaw and it felt weird.
He glanced down and saw that the tip of her finger no longer looked like a finger. Not a human one. Black and dangerously sharp, it reminded him of . . . a talon?
Why did this woman have a talon?
“She promised me,” Amsel went on, “that I’d never have to be scared again by assholes like you. And she didn’t lie to me.” She flicked that talon and pain seared his cheek, blood poured down his jaw. “If you’d just left me alone, Tommy, this wouldn’t be happening.”
The man with Amsel took a knee behind Tommy and grabbed a handful of his hair, yanking Tommy’s head back. “Why is he still alive?”
“Are you in a rush?” Amsel asked, laughing a little. “Got something else to do?”
“He shot you in the head.”
“Again.”
“And yet you haven’t wasted him.”
“Death is so final.” She looked at Tommy and added, “Usually.”
The man growled and she threw up her hands, revealing that all her fingers were black talons.
“What?” Amsel snapped. “What is wrong?”
“I don’t understand why you’re letting him live.”
“I don’t understand why you’re so uptight. My God, man, loosen up.”
“He shot you in the head. I’d think you’d be a little angrier.”
Amsel shrugged. “I don’t let the little things bother me.”
“He shot you in the head,” the man repeated. “How is that a little thing? And then he did it again!”
“You are not making friends, Tommy. He so wants to kill you,” she mock-whispered.
“I so really do.”
“But I’m not going to kill you.” She grabbed Tommy around the throat with both hands and stood, taking Tommy with her, the man forced to let go of Tommy’s hair. “That would be too easy. Because you don’t deserve the quick exit of an honorable death. You deserve to suffer.” She smiled. “And I’m going to be the one to make sure you do.”
* * *
Stieg waited for Erin to do what she had always done so well. Make someone’s life hell.
But, while still gripping the throat of the man who’d shot her in the head again, she abruptly looked at Stieg and asked, “How does my face look?”
Shocked at the question, considering the timing of it, Stieg answered, “What?”
“I asked how my face looks?”
“Why?”
“Is it bruised?”
“Of course it’s bruised.”
“Then I’ll need to crash at your house tonight.”
“You can’t afford a hotel?”
“Wow, dude. I’ve been shot in the head and you’re going to make me stay at a hotel . . . alone? All by myself?”
“Oh, please,” Stieg scoffed, disgusted she was trying to force herself to cry. “And why don’t you just go home?”
“Looking like this?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve gone back to the Bird House looking like that, so why does it matter now?”
Erin started to reply, but then she stopped, shrugged, and said, “You’re right. I’ll just . . . just . . . you’re right.”
Erin Amsel never told Stieg he was right. About anything. She went out of her way to never tell him he was right about anything because it amused her to torment him.
Torment was what she was good at.
“The Crows don’t know what you’re doing, do they?” Stieg accused.
“What am I doing?”
“I don’t know, but it’s something. You’re up to something!”
“What do you care? Why are you even here?” She stared at him a moment and asked again, “Why are you here?”
“I thought you were going to kill this guy?”
“Don’t try and distract me with this idiot. Just tell me what you’re doing here.”
“You tell me!”
They stared at each other for a moment until Erin shook her head and offered, “How about we let that lie . . . and you let me crash at your place, because I heard you have an apartment now.”
“And the hotel’s out because . . . ?
“Betty has spies at all the hotels.”
Betty Lieberman, an Elder Crow and fulltime Hollywood agent, was odd but she didn’t seem that odd.
“Why the hell does Betty have spies at all the hotels?”
“What? You think she keeps movie moguls under control with her charm?”
“Oh. Oh.”
“And if she finds out I was there, it’ll make its way through the Crow Phone Line.”
A phone line that Stieg knew from experience was the fastest on the planet. “And you don’t want that because . . . ?”
“I won’t ask you any questions and you don’t ask me.”
Stieg figured that was for the best. He knew that if his Raven brothers felt the need to follow the woman, it must be for a reason. Probably. Maybe.
Who the hell knows what those idiots are up to?
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
Stieg motioned to Erin’s current prey. “And what about him?”
She smirked. “You thought we’d forgotten about you, didn’t you, Tommy?” She shoved him into Stieg’s arms. “But we didn’t.”
She slapped her hand against Tommy’s face, her long fingers going from right above his eye, down one nostril, and across his mouth to his chin. She unleashed enough heat from her hand to melt all that was under her hand, ignoring Tommy’s screams as he writhed between them, desperately trying to get out of Stieg’s grip.
Not that Stieg blamed the man. He, too, had faced Erin’s “special gift” from the goddess Skuld. Not every Crow received a gift, but the ones who did gave their enemies much to contend with.
For Erin her gift was a mighty flame. So that when she finally pulled her hand back, the damage was complete. No plastic surgeon could fix what she’d done to that man’s face. It went past skin and muscle and right into bone.
Attempts would be made to fix the damage, Stieg was sure, but that would simply add to the man’s suffering—and Erin knew it.
“This way I’ll probably forget you again,” Erin told Tommy—still smiling—with one finger tracing what she’d done to his body, “but you’ll never forget me. Ever.”
“Are you done?” Stieg dropped the Crow’s prey. Honestly, she should have just killed him.
“Yes. I’m done. You’re so uptight.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever.”
“Oh, come on!” she insisted. “This is a good night. I’m alive and well. You’re the big he-man who helped. Isn’t that what matters?”
“That would depend on who you talk to.”
“That’s very nice.”
“You could, however, be a little less cheery. You did just disfigure a man.”
Erin stared down at her victim a few seconds before casually giving her standard reply. “He started it.”
CHAPTER TWO
Inka Solberg-Bentsen, Head Priestess of the Los Angeles Holde’s Maids, stared across the table at Freida, leader of the Giant Killers.
The Giant Killers were the human warriors of Thor, or as Inka’s fellow sisters called the Nordic god, “The idiot.”
She stared and she stared until Freida finally screeched, “Why do you keep staring at me?”
“Probably because it irritates you so.”
That’s when Freida tried to climb over the diner table but Chloe Wong, leader of the Crows, yanked her back with one arm. “Sit down, crazy woman.”
“Kera hasn’t figured out this isn’t a good idea, has she?” Inka asked Chloe, amused as the poor all-night diner staff kept a close eye on the table of people who didn’t look like they belonged together.
Because they didn’t belong together. They never had.
For centuries, each of these groups had not merely tried to kill each other, but had succeeded several times over. More than once, the Claws of Ran had wiped out the Silent; the Silent had wiped out the Maids; the Maids had wiped out the Claws; the Ravens had wiped out the Crows and the Crows turned right around and wiped out the Ravens; then the Protectors came along and wiped out the Ravens and the Crows. Then there were the Isa, who had been in several blood matches with almost all the Clans since they seemed to hate anyone who wasn’t a wild animal. Only the Valkyries managed not to be involved in any of the drama. Favored by all the gods, they took the souls of warriors to Valhalla, and no Clan would risk ending up on the wrong side of their favor.
So this gathering of the Clan leaders in a diner in the wee hours of the morning was just asking for trouble.
But the woman who’d arranged this little get-together was new. She’d only been part of the Crows for a few weeks. Not even three months, but she’d been chosen as War General in this latest battle. Because she was so new, she had no long-term hatred of anyone. Add in that she’d been a United States Marine and she came to the table with skills some of them didn’t have.
War General Kera Watson walked into the diner with the Raven she called “boyfriend,” a term that made Inka laugh. Clan males didn’t really make good boyfriends. Once they locked onto a woman, they were in it for the long haul. Otherwise, a girl or guy was just a one-night stand. Of course, this attitude sometimes led to stalking charges and restraining orders, but only when they insisted on latching onto the Unknowing, the humans who knew nothing about the Viking Clans and the gods who’d created them.
Within the Clans, however, breakups were much easier. They sometimes involved bloodshed and the occasional bar fight, but were much more containable in the end since Clan members rarely brought lawsuits against each other, and proper Viking funerals were paid for out of an All-Clan funeral fund.
“Stop smirking,” Ormi whispered against Inka’s ear. “You’re making Freida nervous.”
“I’m not even thinking about her,” she whispered back.
“It doesn’t matter. She thinks you are.” Ormi slid his hand onto her thigh under the table. “Let’s just try to make this as painless as possible. For all of us.”
Ormi, the Protector leader and a good man—her good man—was right. If things turned ugly here, chances were the Clan members would suffer the least. There were innocents in this diner and despite Inka not caring as much as she probably should, she knew that Ormi cared. He always did. It was what she liked about him.
“I’ll be good,” she promised, squeezing his thigh under the table.
“That’s my vicious girl.”
* * *
Stieg’s apartment wasn’t far from Raven territory.
An apartment in a nine-unit building that looked out over the Pacific would cost the average renter a small fortune. More than five to six times as much as a monthly mortgage payment for a house in the Valley. But most of the properties around Stieg’s building were owned and managed by Ravens; the Vikings had gobbled up a good chunk of this territory long ago. So Erin was sure that Stieg was only paying a fraction of what non-Ravens were paying in the same location.
Of course, that’s where Ravens made most of their Clan’s money. Through real estate. Something they’d learned long ago from their Viking ancestors . . . it was all about territory.
They landed on the roof and Erin paused to take in a deep breath of ocean air. She always loved being close to the ocean. She found it relaxing. She loved relaxing.
“It’s really nice—” she began, only to realize that Stieg had already gone through an unlocked door, disappearing into the building.
She let out a sigh. It was going to be a long, painful evening.
Of course, Erin would never say that Stieg was the worst of the Viking men she knew. For instance, the Giant Slayer who’d been moved to another state because Erin had burned the flesh off his arm after he drunkenly groped her tit during a party.
Still, Stieg was not the easiest man to deal with. She’d never met anyone so young who seemed so bitter. Something about him just radiated “old man ordering kids off his lawn.”
Pulling in her wings, she ran after Stieg, catching him on the second floor as he lumbered his way to the last apartment at the far end. He dug into the front of his black jeans and pulled out a set of keys.
He unlocked his door and walked into his pitch black apartment. Tossing the keys onto the table beside the door, he turned on one light—and one light only—before grabbing the remote from the coffee table, turning on the big flat-screen TV, tossing that remote onto the couch, going into the small, open kitchen, grabbing a Norwegian beer from the fridge, walking back into the living room, dropping onto the couch, putting his feet up on the coffee table, and proceeding to watch “American Greed.” A show about white-collar crime and the rich people who ripped middle-class people off so they could buy sixteen six-figure cars that they ended up never fully paying for and, once sold by the government to recoup losses, could never pay back those who’d been ripped off.
And the whole time, Erin stood in his doorway, watching him.
When Stieg continued to ignore her, she finally asked, “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
He slowly looked away from his show, dark gray eyes locking on her face. “Are you a vampire?”
“Not that I’m aware.”
“Are you
polite?”
“We both know the answer to that.”
“Then why would you need to be invited in?”
Deciding it would be a waste to argue that with him, Erin stepped into the apartment and closed the door behind her.
It wasn’t a bad place at all. Clearly the Valkyries had helped him decorate. Erin couldn’t imagine Stieg Engstrom purposely buying the gorgeous painting of a horse that was on a far wall near the sliding glass door that led to the balcony. Or the very expensive espresso machine she could see in his open kitchen.
His apartment wasn’t large at all, but she bet the view of the ocean made up for all that.
She walked across the living room, barely glancing at the one bathroom and one bedroom she passed.
Pushing open the sliding door, she stepped outside and took in a big breath of the lovely ocean-scented air. There was no moon tonight, but she could see plenty. The pit fires locals had made on the beach, the well-lit tankers out in the Pacific, and the street lamps that dotted the walking path that separated the apartments and the beach.
And what she couldn’t see, she could hear. Like the waves rolling onto the sand.
The Crow house—or, as the other Viking Clans called it, the Bird House—sat on an enormous bit of Malibu property, too, although you had to walk a while before you actually hit the ocean. Much to the annoyance of every multimillionaire actor and director, billionaire entrepreneur and sheik; and European royal who had a title but no real cash to their name, the Los Angeles Crows would never give up their Southern California home, even if they didn’t have a bird’s-eye view of the Pacific.
Why would they when their sister-Crow elders had been so smart?
Those ladies had bought the property back in the early twenties when it was still considered pricey for any land at that time.
Since then, many had tried to buy them out. When that didn’t work, they tried force.
But the Crows never took well to any of that. They would go the legal route first. Yet if that wasn’t effective . . .
Back in the thirties, the first head of the Los Angeles Mafia family had tried to get his hands on the Crows’ territory. He wanted it to “retire” to after he and a friend were shot in what Chloe liked to call “the first drive-by shooting in the LA area.” His men tried money first and when that didn’t work, they sent some hitters to the house in the middle of the night.