The Staff and the Blade by Elizabeth Hunter
So far, the women had been resisting the urge to antagonize each other. Or perhaps they’d joined forces. After all, though Katalin was an aristocrat to the core and Sari fiercely independent, they both hated the Elder Council and politics in general.
Maybe shared enemies really did make friends.
Quite separate from politics, Sari was enjoying watching Mikael’s singers train. The regimen Katalin oversaw was ancient and more detailed than any other instruction for martial Irina around the world, though much was familiar to Sari because Damien had trained her. Sari was still hoping to pick up some new wisdom and hopefully some martial spells he didn’t know while Damien hunted with his brothers in Prague. Leo and Mala had arrived that afternoon from Istanbul, finishing a two-day drive that had left both of them itching for a hunt.
“Leo?” Damien called as he opened the door to Karen and Bruno’s house. “Karen?”
Mala was the first footstep he recognized. She skipped down the stairs and captured his neck in a quick hug before she darted outside.
“Karen?” he called again.
“In the kitchen!” she shouted from the back of the house. “I’m trying to feed the hordes.”
Damien found his way back and slapped his brother on the shoulder. Leo was eating at the table, devouring a loaf of bread with butter as Karen stood over the stove, stirring a pot.
“So good,” Leo mumbled. “Mala refused to stop for food.”
Damien chuckled. “I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true.” He gulped down a mouthful of bread with a drink of milk. “She would stop for gas and tell me to get something from the little market.” Leo looked horrified. “That’s not food in there.”
“This one eats more than Bruno.” Karen was smiling, but she looked almost frazzled. “I didn’t think that was possible.”
“Karen is a jewel among singers,” Leo said. “I knew she’d take care of me when I arrived.” He scowled at Mala when she came through the door and sat at the table. “Unlike this one.”
He complains too much, Mala signed. And always hungry. I think he would have stopped five or six times a day.
“That’s not excessive!” Leo shouted. “I eat six times a day at home. Do you think this body runs on candy bars?” Leo flexed a massive bicep. “No. No, it does not.”
The scribe was six and a half feet tall at a minimum. Damien was tall, but Leo and his cousin towered over him. Maxim was slightly leaner than the massive Leo, but only slightly. And yet both men were surprisingly stealthy hunters. Max was pure shadow that had Damien wondering whether the young scribe had learned some of the tricks his old brother Otto had known. A keen scribe could combine spells to make himself almost disappear.
It wouldn’t have surprised Damien one bit. Maxim was quiet about it, but Damien used the young man’s dubious connections to gather information. Long before the kareshta were revealed, Maxim had contact with Grigori. He had sources and traded information. Had he crossed lines under Damien’s command? Undoubtedly. But if Damien didn’t ask, then Maxim didn’t tell.
Leo, on the other hand, was the Irin equivalent of a rapidly moving tank. No one expected a scribe of his size to be fast, but he was. He was so fast that he was almost always underestimated in battle. Before a Grigori knew what was happening, he was on the ground with a stiletto in his spine. Then Leo would move on to the next one. He was as deadly as he was sweet.
“I hear we’re going to hunt tonight,” Damien said.
Leo nodded and spoke around a mouthful of bread. “Max called around. Gave me a name and an address. Said he’s the one to follow if we want to find Aurel.”
“Good to know,” Damien said. “Any word from Kostas on this lot?”
No, Mala signed. But Sirius was concerned. If Aurel’s among Svarog’s faithful, Sirius says there are likely to be children nearby. Svarog keeps his offspring close at hand.
“Affection or distraction?” Damien asked. He knew better than to trust that Grigori children were mere innocents caught in the crossfire.
Distraction, Mala said. Though Sirius claims that Svarog cares for his children better than most. At least the males.
“The females?”
Cast off, not killed. Mostly left in the human world.
“I see.” But he didn’t see. How any creature could abandon their young was inconceivable to the Irin, for whom children were rare.
His thoughts drifted to Sari. Would Damien ever feel comfortable bringing up the idea of children again? He felt as if he should wait for her. But knowing and accepting that meant acknowledging that Sari might never want another child. Never want to experience the vulnerability of motherhood again.
If Sari had never been with child, Damien could have told himself that it didn’t matter. But she had been. For a few brief months, he’d felt the utter and overwhelming joy of fatherhood. He could no longer pretend that being a father was something he was ambivalent toward. He wanted it more than anything except his mate.
Yet Sari might never be ready. And Damien could not blame her.
※
Damien, Bruno, and Leo were hardly inconspicuous in the human bar that evening, but according to Leo it was the best place to find the Grigori named Christopher, who had the habit of adopting an Australian accent to lure backpackers and wanderers who flooded Prague in the summer. They didn’t have a picture, so they’d have to keep their eyes and ears open. When Grigori wanted to attract humans, they could turn on the charm and have them flocking in droves. But this one, according to Max’s source, preferred the inconspicuous approach.
“Possible,” Bruno muttered from the shadows.
Damien watched the blond man who fit the rough description. He was young and attractive, but Damien immediately dismissed him.
“No.”
“He matches. And he’s approaching that group of girls.”
Damien flicked a thumb along his jaw. “Acne scarring on his chin. Not Grigori.”
Grigori were more perfectly formed than humans and Irin. They did not get acne. They did not get disease. Sons of the Fallen were perfect physical specimens who reflected the glory of their angelic sires even if their power was less.
“How about that one?” Leo said. “Coming down the hall.”
Damien glanced over his shoulder. The three scribes were hidden in the shadows. It was the only way to escape notice. They’d thrown light jackets over their talesm, but Grigori were still adept at spotting Irin. They had to be in order to survive.
“Possible,” Damien said. There was something about the man…
The human girl with her arm around the young man’s waist looked up at him with an adoring—nearly infatuated—gaze. They walked to the bar and stood, waiting to order drinks.
“If it’s him, he’s taking his time,” Bruno muttered.
It was possible the man was Grigori. He was certainly handsome enough and exuded the charisma that other sons of the Fallen did. But Damien wasn’t positive, and he wasn’t going to terrorize an innocent human and his date.
“We should have brought Mala,” Damien said. “Irina can read soul voices. She’d know for certain.”
“We’d attract too much attention,” Leo said.
Because while three gruff men built like wrestlers had a difficult time blending with the general populace, the addition of a statuesque African woman with a ferocious scar on her neck would make stealth impossible in the middle of Prague. Mala was waiting for them in a nearby square.
“There,” Bruno said. “Look at his hand.”
The man had slipped his hand under the woman’s shirt, just at the waist. His fingers appeared to be stroking and teasing her skin, but Damien saw her mouth fall open and her eyes close. The touch of a Grigori was intensely pleasurable to humans, as erotic as it was deadly.
“He’s feeding from her,” Leo said. “In public.”
“Smart,” Damien said, rising to his feet and slipping on his jacket. “But he won’t take it too far with thi
※
Damien waited across the narrow alleyway. The bar was on a side street from Old Town Square, one of the countless pubs that catered to tourists and backpackers in the beer-loving capital of the Czech Republic. It was the perfect place for the Grigori to hunt. He’d already contacted the watcher of the Prague house, who was busy with an uptick in Grigori attacks and was more than happy to have a few extra scribes lending a hand, even if Damien was vague about the true purpose of their mission.
It was only fifteen minutes later that the Grigori and the woman stumbled out of the pub. Alcohol had combined with Grigori feeding, making the woman totter as her date kept one arm around her. No doubt the other patrons thought she’d simply drunk too much. Damien, however, could see the early effects of Grigori draining. Wide pupils. Pale skin and flushed lips.
Bruno walked out a few feet behind them.
“Christopher!” Damien called.
The man turned and caught Damien’s eye. In a split second, he’d dropped the woman and shot down the alley like a rabbit, headed for the square and the crowds that would be filling it on Friday night. Damien charged after him, dodging pedestrians and keeping an eye on the blond head of the Grigori. He ran quickly but couldn’t get clear of the crowds of boisterous humans without attracting attention.
“Damien?” Leo called.
“To the square!”
Leo overtook him and the humans got out of this way. Whether it was the murderous look on the giant’s face or the sheer size of him, the crowds parted. Within seconds, Leo had zeroed in on the fleeing Grigori and was reaching out—
Just as the man took a tumble to the ground, tripping facedown on the staff Mala had extended to catch his ankle. Christopher went down hard and loud, drawing the attention of the humans around him.
Mala melted back into the crowd as Leo made a show of helping the man up, locking his arm around the Grigori’s neck.
“Let’s get some food in your belly, Chris!” Leo said, laughing. “Too many beers, yes?”
“No…”
Christopher’s face was pale and drawn. He looked around in panic, but no one paid attention to another drunk tourist in Old Town Prague. Leo muscled his way through the crowd, his massive arm locked around the Grigori in what looked like a friendly hug, following Mala while Damien and Bruno strolled the same direction.
“Like an elephant, that one.” Bruno stuck his hands in his pockets.
“If an elephant ran like a cat.”
“He’d be an excellent rugby player, you know.”
“Yes. But he makes an even more excellent soldier.”
※
Mala revived the man with a slap across the knees when Leo’s chokehold got a little too aggressive. There was no permanent harm done, Damien thought as he pulled up a chair across from the Grigori. He’d been duct-taped to a chair and wore a terrified expression.
“Your name is Christopher, is it not?” Damien asked.
No answer.
“My name is Damien of Bohemia,” he said. “Have you heard of me?”
He could tell by the man’s eyes that he had.
“You’ve heard the stories of me, yes?”
“You killed Camissares,” Christopher whispered, his fake Australian accent slipping. “One of the ancients.”
“I did.”
Camissares hadn’t been one of the most powerful of the Fallen, but he had been ancient. An ancient murderer of children. He’d preyed on young girls and had delighted in watching their bellies swell with his young before they withered away, leaving his angelic spawn to be raised by a veritable army of their half siblings. Damien hadn’t known about female Grigori children then. He shuddered to think what the monster had done with his own daughters. Probably killed them, as many of the Fallen did.
Damien had been glad when the order to stalk the angel had come. Camissares’s sons had stalked the eastern roads, taking multitudes of those running to or away from the holy lands. Killing him had been a challenge and a reward.
“So you know, Christopher, that I am a respected scribe,” Damien said. “When I tell you that your sire is marked for death, you should believe me.”
“Aurel?” Christopher said. “Aurel is marked for death?”
What Damien saw in the Grigori’s eyes confounded him. Anger. Desire. Anticipation. Rage. The Grigori hated and loved his sire, just as so many of his kind did. Without his sire, a Grigori would be hunted, but he would also be free.
“Aurel is marked,” Damien confirmed. “And if you’d like to live, you can tell us where he lives.”
“That’s all?” Christopher said. “I don’t have to fight him with you?”
“Why would you ask that?”
“There are rumors that Grigori fight on the same side as Irin now. In some battles, we are forced to fight our sires and are used as bait.”
“The only Grigori I have fought with have chosen to fight at my side. Is that what you want? To fight the angels?”
“I want to be left alone. I don’t want to fight at all.”
“Want to be left alone to hunt human girls, you mean?” Bruno asked. “We didn’t find you meditating, did we, Christopher?”
The man paled again and his eyes flicked to Mala. “I have to. You know that. You’d do the same thing if you didn’t have your women.”
Leo leaned forward. “You kill them, though. You don’t need to.”
“I don’t kill all of them. Not if I can help it. But you kill all of us. So who’s really the monster?”
※
He’d called Sari when they captured Christopher. By the time Damien finished interrogating him, she had arrived. The Grigori had agreed to drive with Damien out to where the fallen angel, Aurel, made his home. It was an isolated house set on a curve of the Vltava River. According to Aurel, numerous Grigori guarded the road, but the angel had no way of guarding the river itself.
Damien didn’t particularly like boats, but when Bruno found one to borrow, it seemed like the best option for gathering information. They set off from a small private dock downriver and made their way up the curving Vltava and away from the lights of the village along the riverbank.
It was pitch-black on the water, but Bruno didn’t seem to mind. His spells for night vision were particularly keen.
Damien sat in the stern of the fishing boat with Sari at his side.
“He says the angel doesn’t watch the water,” Damien said.
“Do we believe him?”
“No. Maybe.”
Sari tapped her foot impatiently.
“You know this is a scouting expedition only,” Damien said. “We’re gathering information. Forming a plan.”
“I brought the camera.”
“If we go in now, the angel—”
“Damien.” She turned to him. “Do you really think me an untried youth?”
He squeezed her shoulder. “I think your heart is even bigger than your spirit, milá. That’s why I’m telling you now that the Grigori said there will be children.”
She froze. “At the house?”
“We knew it would be a possibility.”
He watched her carefully. Sari’s reaction to Grigori children was rarely predictable. She alternated between irrational fear and pity. The few children they’d come across since the Battle of Vienna had caused her to retreat into herself, and those had all been harmless girls or boys seeking shelter in scribe houses.
Aurel’s children could be another matter entirely. Like the children in the Battle of Vienna, they might be trained to attack. They could be vicious or unstable or frightened by someone invading their home. There was really no way of knowing if they were innocent or dangerous.
She squeezed his hand. “You’re right. We did know.”
“If we kill this angel—”
“When we kill him.”
“When we kill this Aurel, his children will be free.”
“Which presents new challenges,” Sari said. “I know this. But try not to get ahead of yourself, my love. First we kill him. Then we deal with the survivors.”
The boat chugged up the river for a few more miles, passing the house that Christopher pointed out, then Bruno cut the engine and the lights, letting the boat drift downriver as they got out the binoculars and cameras that Sari had brought. Christopher was tied up and stowed belowdecks while they made notes about the lay of the land and the buildings they could see. Bruno had agreed to take him to Kostas’s men in Budapest the next morning, but until then, the Grigori would be at their mercy.
The house wasn’t one of the historic buildings that dotted the small river towns but a starkly modern multistory complex that led up the steep riverbank and took advantage of the view. It resembled a hospital to Damien’s eye. One long building lay closest to the river, and he saw guards patrolling a hallway that ran the length. They didn’t carry firearms that he could see. They did carry knives.
He handed the scope to Sari. “The building along the bank, what do you notice?”
She took a moment. “Doors. Lots of them. It looks like a hospital or… an apartment building of some sort. They’re numbered.”
“I noticed that too.” He also noticed when her shoulders tensed. “What is it?”
She handed him back the scope without a word. Damien looked through it and immediately saw what had unnerved Sari. A child, a beautiful boy that Damien would place around four years of age, was walking down the dock that led out of the low apartment-style building. He was holding the hand of the guard and chattering. The guard appeared amused. Indulgent, even.
A door opened and slammed, drawing his attention.
“Damien, are you seeing this?” Leo asked quietly.
“Yes.”
A woman strode down the long hallway, her eyes searching out the windows. She paused, then something made her shout. She walked to the doorway, and Damien saw that she was hugely pregnant. Her dark eyes were black in a moon-pale face, but he could tell she had once been beautiful even if she was now wasting from the child she carried. She walked out the doorway and toward the guard and the boy.