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Leif Asgard looked up when the blood slave slipped into the crowded council chamber. No one else noticed. Leif noticed, because he felt the ring on his finger softly thrum. It was his brother's ring, and Leif couldn't figure out how to get the damned thing off.
One more thing to curse Sven for. Worse, his brother had the balls to die and leave Leif to this madness. Six months since the Crash. Six months since the world turned upside down. Six months since all hell had broken loose, literally, and brought down the civilization he had come to depend on.
Six months since Sven had died and left Leif shackled at the reins of this gods-be-damned runaway circus train.
From his seat at the defendant's gate, Leif watched Admiral Jameson ranting across the room. In his mind he turned the sound off like an old black-and-white movie. He was tired of listening, tired of having to defend himself and his kind, tired of having to prove his right to exist when some moments he didn't even know if he believed it himself.
Admiral Jameson wore his navy uniform like a shield. Frayed about the collar and threadbare in some places, it was a nostalgic symbol of authority in the once-great United States of America. The fallen government had few spokesmen left. Those that chose to fill the void were frightened, bullheaded, and incredibly paranoid. Jameson pointed his gavel at Leif, and Leif tuned back in. “âLet me remind you, sir, that you are under oath. Do you mean to say you have never killed?”
Leif didn't think anyone could survive two hundred years without shedding blood, but the human admiral was having difficulty wrapping his head around the idea of immortality. There were any number of honorable reasons for killing in the course of his two centuries. There had been revolutions, riots, duels. Insults that couldn't be borne. Revenge. Justice. But Leif refused to be tried for past deeds in this laughable shoestring mockery of a court, judged by a mob of terrified mortals.
He wouldn't die for his brother's sins either.
“Dragons are not killers,” Leif said, “any more than the lion on the Serengeti is a killer. A predator, yes, but man is also at the top of the food chain.”
“Humans don't harvest souls!” Jameson shouted, and the mob in the council audience murmured its agreement. Leif could almost imagine them with pitchforks, right out of Shelley's tale. Time might progress, but humans stayed as ignorant and xenophobic as ever.
“But you kill to eat,” Leif said. “The imbibing of souls doesn't require the death of the donor. Think of it as a blood transfusion.”
“You stealâ”
“Our donors are willing.” At least his were. “And this really isn't the point of contention, is it? Humans could choose to be vegetarians, but most of you don't. For a Dreki to choose not to eat souls would be suicide.”
Tiamat blight him. He'd told Astrid this was a mistake. She sat on one side of the long council bench separated from the Kivati by Jameson and his fellow human representatives. It made a pretty tableau: two shape-shifting races forced to play nice beneath the terrified watch of the humans. Everyone had pulled together to help put the world back to rights after the Crash. Leif had left the political wrangling to Astrid, because she was experienced in this bullshit. She had served Sven's interests on the Seattle City Council for four decades, right here in this room beneath the blithely ignorant noses of the humans. Since the Crash, she'd stopped dyeing her hair gray. She wasn't pretending to be human anymore. None of them were.
Leif didn't have Sven's silver tongue or Astrid's slippery morals. He shouldn't be here debating his people's right to live when he could be doing real work in his laboratory. He was a scientist, not a politician, and he was a damned good one. There were people dying in the streets. People cold and hungry without jobs, without the skills needed to live in a world without electricity, without shelter from the wraiths. Leif could help those people, but not
here
. He needed to get back to work inventing tools that could make a difference.
“Your kind put us into this situation,” Jameson accused.
“Not
my
kind. Not the Drekar.” Sven might have set up the fall of the Gate, but a Kivati man pulled the trigger. “Please stop lumping all supernatural races into the same groupâ”
“You are all killers!” Jameson shouted.
“Please.” Emory Corbette, the leader of the Kivati, was elegant in a coal-black three-piece suit, silver rings in his ears. His ebony hair brushed his straight shoulders. A thin circle of violetâthe tell of all Kivati shape-shiftersâringed his jet-black eyes. A vein ticked in his temple. His people were an ancient race who could shift into a totem animal: Thunderbird, Crow, Wolf, Bear, Fox, and the like. Corbette's totem was the Raven, and his sharp beak of a nose gave him away. He raised his hand, and a silent wave of Aether licked through the room, quieting tempers, easing the rabid murmurs of the crowd. “This is unproductive. We are all here to help rebuild civilization. We have the same goal. The new Regent is not his brother.”
Thank Tiamat for that, Leif thought. But what if he were? He'd felt the darkness swirling in his breast in the empty space where his soul should have been. He could easily follow it down and get lost somewhere between despair and madness. It happened to all Drekar eventually. But Sven had always seemed so sane.
Corbette rapped his silver-tipped cane on the banister. Since the Crash, everything about the Kivati leader was sharper, crueler. “As a scientist, Leif Asgard was building steam- and coal-powered technology in its heyday. He is an invaluable resource for reviving our technological capabilities and building a new world. Even if the Drekar deserve to be exterminated”âand his tone said they didâ“we can't afford to lose his skills.”
Leif granted Corbette a tight smile. After more than a century of bloodshed between their two races, he was hesitant to trust Corbette. Leif didn't want to be the Regent, and he had good reason. His people still needed a wartime leader, and it would never be him. Dragons might have survived the apocalypse better than most, given their thick hides and imperviousness to fire, but how many would want to live on in this barren new world? Their treasure hoards lay beneath miles of collapsed rubble and dirt. Their once-clear skies were constantly gray with thick volcanic ash. They needed someone to rally behind. A Machiavellian leader who could wield fear to keep them in line.
Not Leif.
Astrid finally decided to intervene. About damned time. She rose. With her black hair undyed, she didn't look a day over twenty-five, though she'd seen the fall of Genghis Khan.
Act charming and a little clueless
, the elder Dreki had coached him.
Humans don't trust anyone smarter than them.
She should be the one standing behind the defendant's gate answering questions, not Leif. “Admiral, Lord Raven, gracious members of the council.” Her smile caught their attention. Gorgeous like all dragon-kind, she had the cat eyes of her Mongol father and the fair skin of her Norse mother. Few could resist her charm, even before she opened her mouth. “The Drekar bring many invaluable resources to the council. The Regent, in particular, is almost finished restoring the Seattle Gas Works so that we may have functioning gas to light our city.”
Out of the spotlight for a moment, Leif spared a glance for the blood slave. Hidden in the back of the mob, the slight figure blended with the shadows in a black sweatshirt with the hood pulled forward over his or her face. A few blue bangs stuck out from beneath the hood. Leif could pinpoint the kid with his eyes closed. The invisible tether burned across the room like a live wire.
“Regent?” Astrid called his attention back to the damned meeting. “Why don't you share your progress on this project with the council. I'm sure they will understand how generously we put our resources toward the good of the whole.”
“Right.” He shuffled his notes. This is why Astrid insisted he come. She wanted him to be the face of the Drekar. She needed him to explain the technical details of his project, not that Jameson would care. He could smell a ruse as good as the next fellow. But she wore him down until he agreed. She could be as bad as Sven. “The Gas Works is an old coal gasification plant built in 1906 to create luminous gas for houses and streetlights. Though decommissioned in the 1950s, I've spent the last six months restoring it. Corbette has reopened his coal mine at Ravensdale.” He nodded to Corbette, who acknowledged the fragile partnership with an answering nod. This was where the project got sticky. The city needed light. The Kivati had the coal; Leif had the factory. Both sides expected a knife in the back at any moment.
Another human on the council, the charismatic, but slightly fanatical prophet-minister Raphael Marks, raised his hand. “And where do you expect to put this gas? Who gets it first?”
“The old Victorian mansions on Capitol Hill and Queen Anne make the most sense. Many of them were wired for both gas and electric, as the victor in the gas/electric battle had yet to emerge at the time they were built. I've placed those houses at the top of the list for renovation.”
“And how many humans live in those mansions?” Marks asked.
“Ah,” Leif hesitated. He'd walked right into that trap. “Retrofitting regular houses for gas will take time.”
The mob, who was mostly made up of Marks's rabid followers, hissed.
“Resources for mankind first!” someone yelled.
“Send Satin's minions back to hell!” another shouted.
Leif did his best not to roll his eyes. He sent Astrid a pleading glare. She raised her eyebrows a fraction. She wasn't going to take over and save this thing. Damn the woman. “First we need to get the Gas Works back into commission, then we can identify the most suitable buildings.” He raised his voice to be heard over the crowd. “I need resources and manpower to finish the job.”
“What about wraiths?” a woman called.
“I don't think a few ghosts should be an insurmountable obstacle to retrofitting theâ”
“Bullshit!” the woman shouted. The mob started throwing things. More anger. More anti-supernatural hate mongering. The tide had definitely turned. After six months of working together, the survivors needed someone to blame. Leif made a convenient scapegoat.
“Please,” Leif said. “Please hear me out. Light will help. Secure shelter out of the darknessâ”
“Resources should be used for training human civilians,” the woman called.
“We don't need more armed civilians,” Jameson growled. He banged his gavel, but no one minded.
Leif slowly turned in his seat to locate the woman. It was the blood slave. She was still half hidden in the crowd, still hiding behind her black hood and hunched posture. He wouldn't let a coward derail his project. “Show yourself,” he ordered. The bond between them cracked like a whip.
She jerked forward and threw back her hood. He was startled to find such a delicate face. Long, blue-black hair framed a heart-shaped chin. Coral lips were a slash of anger across her smooth skin. Thick, sooty lashes framed almond eyes. Those eyes sparked with defiance.
Interesting. “What do you want?” he demanded.
“Safety,” she said, and seemed startled.
Admiral Jameson rose. “That's what we're working on. Thank you. Please save your comments for the citizen petition session.”
But she kept talking. “We must train citizen soldiers to recognize the aptrgangr and take them out. Establish a tougher curfewâ”
“The what?” Marks asked.
“Quiet, please!” Jameson commanded.
“âGas lighting is a waste of time until we address the direct threat. Wraith attacks have tripled. Hungry, weakened humans are easy prey for possession,” she continued, seemingly unable to stop. Her hunched shoulders were defensive. In those black jeans and baggy sweatshirt, she looked like a skinny punk kid. Leif would never have given her a second glance on the street. Perhaps that was her intent.
On his finger, Sven's ring hummed. Leif wondered what his brother had used her for. She looked too small to be trained as a fighter. Perhaps an assassin or thief? He tried to keep his mind from exploring other possibilities. The words “pleasure slave” rose unbidden to his brain.
Her face had grown red. Each word seemed pried from her lips. “And also to prevent weakened humans, the soul-suckers should be kiâ”
“Stop,” Leif ordered before she could rally the mob in a direction he most firmly did not want to return to. “Stop. Thank you. You're correct. Safety is more important than power, but wraiths fear the light. The two tasks go hand in hand.”
She glared at him with both parts hate and fear. Ye gods, it cut him. This hatred born of prejudice he had little control over, but he never wanted to inspire fear. He would never be a leader like his father or brother. Fear was not something he would seek out. She made him want to jump out of his chair and apologize, but he didn't know what for. For not being able to solve all the world's problems? For “sucking souls” as she so unflatteringly put it? For existing?