Chapter 8 #3
Sirro bent to pick up the crossbow bolt hidden amongst the velvet from the coffee table.
He stared at it for several heartbeats, his gaze lost in memory.
Some indecipherable thought crossed his face as his thumbs brushed across the soft fabric.
A breath later he let go of whatever thought had ensnared him, blinked as if coming to, and disappeared with the weapon into his bedroom.
The Horned God’s Familiar padded after him but stopped at the threshold and waited beside the open door, her liver-spotted hands hanging limply at her sides.
The faint scrape of rubber against wood snapped my attention to my brother. He’d pushed his feet back and sat straighter in his chair, wiping the sweat from his forehead with a forearm. The sharp cut of Jett’s cheeks softened as he flashed a swift, ecstatic grin at me.
One I returned.
Seemingly, we’d pulled it off.
Sirro had gone for our cover-up.
I schooled my features into boredom, Jett mirroring me when I moved to his side to support him as he awkwardly pushed off his chair. He rose, shoving me off. “I’m fine.” And then a knee buckled. He pitched forward, and I grabbed hold of his arms, hauling him upright.
“Fine?” I echoed sarcastically.
“Shit,” he huffed, breathing a little harder, his features strained. But the stubborn ass allowed me to lend him support. Steadying his stance, he rolled a shoulder and stretched his spine from side to side. “I’m okay.”
I reluctantly let go. As soon as I did, Jett swayed, stumbling but to my relief, quickly regained his balance. At my pointed look, he grouched, “I’ll be okay…soonish.”
As much as he annoyed the shit out of me, I wanted to wrap my arms around him in a bear hug and squeeze the ever-living hells out of him.
Jett’s pupils were enlarged with the elixir and painkiller running rife through his blood.
Pushing his sweat-heavy hair back, he tied it up with a strip of worn leather.
A notch formed between his brows as he studied Sirro’s Familiar, with her bony shoulders and hunched back, the wavering ghostly threads sweeping through the doorway connecting her to Sirro.
She stared vacantly straight ahead, a milky film of cataracts slightly obscuring the color of her brown eyes.
A shudder worked its way down my spine.
Over a decade ago, Sirro had claimed her as a young woman, stealing her life essence to prolong his own. In the last few years, she’d aged rapidly, fading from beauty to crone.
I knew where Jett’s thoughts had gone. Red. The girl he saved. An Unbroken Shard—a rare mortal that had the perfect soul for surviving darkness. The perfect soul for a Horned God to steal life from.
Sirro reentered the solar, wearing a navy jacket with an unknotted tie.
He ran the flat of his palm through his tousled hair, smoothing it back from his forehead.
Staring at my younger brother, his eyes were now the color of buttery sunbeams pouring through the skylight.
“Perhaps it’d be best to stick with the story that you fell off your motorcycle. ”
Jett gaped, offended that someone could think he’d have a crash. I could almost hear the words rolling off his tongue—fuck off—before he bit them back, shooting me a sullen look before meeting Sirro’s expectant gaze. “Suppose.”
The Horned God chuckled, moving toward the entrance to his solar, with us right behind. He halted, waiting patiently while I opened the door.
Sarnia stood in the hallway awaiting him. She brushed her hands over Sirro’s shoulders, adjusting the jacket to sit perfectly, before flicking my brother a glance. “I see you didn’t die, Jett.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, Sarnia.”
Her rosy lips smiled as she swiftly knotted Sirro’s tie in a flurry of moves.
“Besides,” Jett added, gingerly crossing his arms over his chest. “I’d rather avoid your fury at bleeding out all over your precious, clean floor if at all possible.”
“Good choice,” she replied smartly as she fixed Sirro’s collar and smoothed a hand down the lapels of the jacket.
“Thank you, Sarnia,” Sirro murmured. She dipped her head, pivoted on her heel, and strode off, heels clicking against the ancient blue and white tiles.
The autumnal hues spilling from the lanterns overhead crowned her dark brown hair in bronze as she made her way down the hallway toward the atrium, where Byron’s deep baritone voice rang out.
Sirro’s commanding voice drew my attention back to the Horned God.
“I want the Widowmakers back in line, and then I want a replacement for what was stolen from me. You can do the honors, Jett.” At his name, my brother twisted around from watching Sarnia retreat, waiting to hear what the Horned God desired from him.
“I want a new Unbroken Shard. And if you happen to find one with red hair…” Sirro’s smile became snake-like. “Well, I will be pleased.”
I stiffened. How much did Sirro know? Had he purposely let us get away with it?
Jett nodded, affirming he’d understood the order, and to my relief, he kept his emotions in check.
Sirro’s gaze lazily worked its way to mine. “With me.”
Jett moved ahead, his pace slow.
I shortened my leggy stride to match Sirro’s, confusion running rife through my mind.
This whole meeting with Sirro, from Byron, to Aldert, to his fondness for my mother, was disorienting, and I wondered what the Horned God was up to, whether we’d inadvertently stepped into quicksand, led to the exact spot he wanted us—sucked under by cloying machinations.
The hallway was like a wind tunnel. Not currents of air, but of immense power, bottlenecked and thrumming against the bone-lined walls, buffeting against my flesh as it swept all around me.
The pulse of Sirro’s dark might matched my worried heartbeat.
As we passed beneath each hanging lantern, the light crackled and flickered and fizzed.
The sound of our footfalls clattered against the long hallway curved with the bones.
They were from some ancient beast, or maybe it was more correct to say beasts.
The mottled bones, differing in size and color, didn’t quite match as they would have done if they had come from a single part of a creature.
As I’d done on prior occasions, called to a meeting at his private residence, I wondered if he’d killed these creatures and if these were his trophies set in a morbid and strange display case.
As we neared the point where the hallway ended and the threshold of the atrium came into view, Sirro slowed his pace. The otherworldly threads linking him to his Familiar, trailing behind, churned and rippled like smoke.
I adjusted my stride, shooting him a curious look.
“I want something else. Someone else. A creature that’s hidden from me for some time in Ascendria. You’ll need a hunter. Take that friend of yours, Mela V?duva, with you.”
Mela.
My only true friend outside my family.
But she’d be a shattered soul after what Sirro had done back at the temple.
Elyse, the girl she’d finally dared to share her love for, had been exposed as a fire-torch, an other.
And Sirro had slaughtered Elyse’s parents for defying the canon of the Horned Gods by hiding their daughter’s true nature.
There was nothing you could do against a Horned God. I knew that better than anyone else.
Sirro’s voice lost its polish and became roughened. “His name is Yezekael. Find him and bring him to me.”
Whoever or whatever Yezekael was, I doubted Sirro wanted to invite him over for a friendly catch-up. I raised a brow, hoping for more information than only a name.
He changed the topic, jarring my thoughts. “The Witches Ball isn’t far away now.”
“Three months.” The whereabouts of the ball was still unknown to everyone. When the forerunners of the wandering spirit of Cernesse crossed the skies, the Horned Gods would discover the location of the event.
“Plans are afoot for those creatures creeping out from dank cracks and crevasses. Offerings will be needed to keep their gluttonous appetites in check.”
Stolen souls. The reason so many Hunters were attending this meeting. Not just mortals, but lesser creatures of our world too.
Most of the witches, those Horned Gods that crafted spells from obscure ingredients and an ancient language holding power within its words, were reclusive to borderline paranoid and kept their identities hidden.
Some of those dark creatures gorged themselves at the Ball and then slumbered between events.
Sirro drew to a halt at the edge of the hallway. With the open-spaced atrium before us, we could see Byron walking between the seated rows of Heads, issuing duties to the Houses. His stride purposeful. His tone iron.
A cluster of small spiders crawled across the shivering web strung across the glass ceiling. Wraith-wolves prowled, their strange eyes aglow and fixed on those attending.
Jett glanced over his shoulder and saw that Sirro and I hadn’t entered the atrium. Perplexed, he stopped walking, his hand briefly massaging his wounded side. He stood a polite distance away, but with his keen hearing, he’d be able to listen in to my conversation with the Horned God.
My gaze drifted over the four main players here.
The short, stocky Battagli who cleaned our illegally earned wealth; Dimitre Zielenski, who was in charge of the brothels; the gambling arm overseen by Lukus Reska; and Yoran Novak ruled the crime syndicates that distributed our magic-infused drugs, created by the Pellans or, as Sirro rightly said, by Lower House Simonis.
But the rest of the attendees were hunters and sat in rows facing each other.