Between the Blade and the Heart

  "This is why you shouldn't have gone alone," Oona said after I cursed under my breath again. "I bet this wouldn't have happened if Marlow was there."

  "Maybe not," I allowed. "But it shouldn't have been this bad anyway."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Valkyries have immunities to this kind of stuff. From everything I know about Jorogumos, their poison should only have a minimal effect on me." I shook my head. "Even Quinn commented on it."

  Oona spritzed a pale purple liquid on my leg wound. It stung for a moment, then the pain quickly faded to a dull nothingness. "That should help numb it a bit, and now I'm gonna start stitching you up."

  "Thanks for the heads-up." I made sure to keep my eyes on the ceiling so I wouldn't see the needle go in. Oona was right--the spray did numb the pain. I still felt it, the pressure of the needle and thread going through skin, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

  "Do you think it could be because you're not licensed yet?" Oona asked.

  "That's not how it works," I explained. "A piece of paper doesn't give me the antibodies or super-strength. I'm born with it. It's in my blood."

  "Could your father have diluted it or something?" she asked.

  "No. All Valkyries have mortal fathers, and I've never heard of them having fewer abilities for that reason."

  Oona lifted her head and looked up at me. "Who was your father?"

  "I don't know. Just some human," I said, then quickly added, "No offense."

  She snorted. "None taken."

  Valkyries were in an odd place where we weren't immortal, but we weren't exactly human, either. We were a breed all our own, with many of the same weaknesses as humans, like death, aging, and the need for oxygen and sunlight. We were just stronger, more resilient, and had an innate ability to hunt immortals, and while our blood weakened the immortals around us, it had no effect on humans.

  "But this is different anyway," I said. "Amaryllis was saying all this weird stuff."

  "What do you mean?"

  I closed my eyes, trying to remember exactly what Amaryllis had been saying to me through her fangs. "That she was going to kill me, and the underworld is more powerful than I'll know, and the tables are turning."

  "That's not normal posturing and threats?"

  "Kind of. But it just..." I sighed. "I don't know. It didn't feel like an empty threat. It was almost like ... like she knew something."

  Oona stopped stitching me for a moment. "I'm doing the best I can with this, but you're still going to need to go to the doctor at some point to make sure this is taken care of for real."

  Then I felt the needle going back in, and Oona said very little as she concentrated on finishing the sutures. When she was done, she started washing off my leg and then covered the wound with some kind of anti-infection salve.

  "Did Marlow ever get beat up like this?" Oona asked as she wrapped my leg in a bandage.

  Marlow had returned with a black eye or a fat lip a dozen or so times. I remember waking up once when she came in late. Her lip was bloody, and her knuckles were all scraped up from punching. She sat in the darkened living room, drinking vodka straight from the bottle, and when I tried to ask her what had happened, she just snapped at me to go back to bed.

  But that was probably the worst I'd ever seen her. No broken bones. No puncture wounds. No parts of spiders trapped inside her.

  "She came home with a few scrapes and bruises from time to time, but it was never this bad," I admitted.

  "So it could be because of your inexperience." Oona had finished bandaging my leg, so she sat back and looked up at me. "Or it could be because something is up." She waited a beat before asking, "Is there any way this could be related to that guy that Marlow didn't kill?"

  I groaned, realizing belatedly that it could be. "I don't know."

  "You're gonna have to talk to someone, Mal. That's the only way you'll find out what's really going on."

  "Who am I gonna talk to?" I asked, sitting up straighter on the couch. "Marlow is stonewalling me, and anyone else I could talk to, like Samael or my teachers, they would just turn me in."

  "You could talk to Quinn," Oona proposed.

  My heart skipped a beat, as if Oona saying her name would somehow invoke her presence, and I shook my head adamantly. "No, I'm not talking to Quinn."

  "She wouldn't turn you in."

  "You don't know that, and even if it's true, I can't," I maintained. "It's too complicated."

  "First off, I do know that," Oona argued. "She cares about you. When I told her what you were doing, she freaked out because she was so worried about you."

  I groaned loudly in exasperation.

  "And second, I don't even know why you broke up with her," Oona went on, undeterred by my reaction. "You two were crazy about each other, and then you suddenly pulled the Valkyries-can't-fall-in-love card."

  I rubbed my hand over my face and regretted ever introducing Oona to Quinn. "I already told you it's complicated."

  "Okay, it's not, but let's say that it is," she conceded. "That there's all sorts of complex, unrequited feelings going on between you and Quinn. You know what I say to that? Suck it up, buttercup. If she can help you deal with whatever crap is going on right now, then you need to ask for help. That's the bottom line."

  "I know you're right...." My voice trailed off.

  "But?" she supplied.

  "But the fewer people that know what's going on, the safer it is for both me and Marlow. So let me just try talking to her, and if I can't find out anything, I'll go to Quinn."

  "That's all I'm saying," Oona relented finally.

  I stood up slowly, careful to not put too much weight on my injured left leg. "Right now I should get some sleep."

  Oona scrambled through her thaumaturgy kit, before finding a miniature mason jar. It was filled with tiny ocher crystals, and she dumped out two into the palm of her hand. "Here." She held them out to me. "Take this."

  "What is it?" I asked, already taking it from her.

  "It's called solamentum, and it's made with ginger and angelic toadstool with just the smallest touch of codeine," she explained. "It should help with the inflammation, pain, and risk of infection."

  I threw back my head and tossed them in my mouth, and instantly regretted it. They were tart and acidic, like grapefruit juice mixed with battery acid. "That tastes terrible. Why does everything that's good for me taste so awful?"

  "That's just how the world works, Mal."

  I smiled down at her. "Thanks again for taking care of me."

  "That's what friends are for, right?" Oona smiled back.

  "Come on, Bowie." I whistled for him as I hobbled toward my bedroom, and he hopped after me. "Let's hit the sack."

  TWENTY-ONE

  It wasn't even noon yet as I made my way to Marlow's place, and the city was already bursting with Feast of the Dead celebrations. A parade had traffic blocked up all over, and it took my taxi driver an extra thirty minutes just to get me to where I'd left my luft parked in the Gold Coast.

  The streets were dripping with decorations, from black streamers to strings of purple lights. Each light post I went past on my way to Marlow's had a different poster of a figure from the underworld, all of them labeled with:

  PATRON SAINT OF KURNUGIA

  Normally the Feast of the Dead seemed like a fun--albeit obnoxiously traffic-jam-inducing--holiday, but today everything felt strangely unsettling. The patron saints posters--the sage Hades with a thick beard and blue flames rising behind him, the terrifying horned Supay with red eyes and bloody flesh peeling from his body, and the arresting Ereshkigal with lush black skin and an impish grin sitting atop her throne of bones--were particularly unnerving.

  Even though they were just pictures on paper--an artist's rendering in exquisite detail--they carried such an imposing presence that I could swear their eyes were following me as I hurried past, making the hair rise on the back of my neck and an icy chill run down my spine.

  To get to
Marlow's stoop, I had to push my way through a throng of teenage girls and ghouls, all dressed up in couture mourning gowns, several replete with gauzy black veils flowing around them. They all talked and laughed loudly, and if the smell was to be believed, they were already drunk on cheap booze and liliplum.

  Marlow hadn't answered her phone when I tried calling this morning, and given the severity of everything that had happened with Amaryllis Mori, I decided I couldn't wait to talk to her, and I was coming over uninvited.

  After walking up the four flights of stairs to her apartment, I was really hoping she was home, because I doubted that my leg could handle the trek again. Oona had even given me a couple more of those solamentum crystals to help with the pain, but my wound was still throbbing. I'd smartly worn a flowy skirt with slits down the side, so it wouldn't rub against my leg too much.

  I knocked, and though it took a bit for her to answer, I heard Marlow talking inside. The slot for the peephole clanged and she muttered, "Dammit," on the other side of the door. Just what every daughter wants to hear when she visits her mother.

  Finally she opened the door a crack. She was wide awake, with hair and makeup properly styled, which was usually a good indicator that she would be less cranky, but based on the irritation in her eyes, I realized that wasn't the case.

  "What are you doing here?" Marlow demanded through the gap in the door.

  "I just--"

  Before I could finish, she shouted back over her shoulder, "Did you tell her you were here?"

  "No," Asher said from inside Marlow's apartment. "I didn't talk to her."

  "Asher is here?" I asked. "What's going on?"

  "Fine, come in." Marlow opened the door all the way and gestured wildly around her. "Let's all just have a big old chat."

  The first thing I noticed was that her apartment was significantly less cluttered than it had been when I came over the day before yesterday. All the garbage had been removed from the kitchen, and most of her random military surplus objects seemed to be stowed away somewhere.

  The boxes were still stacked up, blocking the only window, and there were still the tubs of rice and lentils, but in general everything felt more orderly and neatly piled up. The only light came from what little spilled around the boxes, several fat candles on the coffee table, and a solitary bulb shining over the sink in the kitchen.

  Asher sat on the couch, smiling sheepishly and offering me a small wave as I stepped inside. Marlow had stomped off to the kitchen, pouring herself a cup of coffee with a hefty dash of vodka, so I closed the door behind me.

  "Your mother invited me over to discuss things," Asher explained awkwardly, since it seemed like Marlow didn't plan to. "I got here about ten minutes ago."

  "Why didn't you tell me?" I asked Marlow.

  "Why would I?" She sat down in a slipper chair across from Asher and crossed her long legs, one over the other. She stared up at me with her steel-gray eyes. "This doesn't involve you. This was part of my agreement with Teodora, not you."

  "How does this not involve me?" I protested.

  "I'm the one that made a mistake, so I'm the one fixing it," she replied coolly. "You don't have anything to do with it."

  "Yeah, sure, you're right." I took off my messenger bag from where it hung looped across my chest and walked over to the couch, where I sat down heavily beside Asher. "I almost got killed last night, but you're right. None of this concerns me."

  Marlow tilted her head and narrowed her eyes slightly. "What do you mean, you almost got killed?"

  "Remember how you were too busy this weekend to help me do a job I'm not ready to do yet?" I clunked my heavy moto boot on her battered coffee table and pulled my skirt to the side to show my leg. Oona had rebandaged it this morning, but it was still bleeding through. My skin above and below it was dark purple from bruising. "Well, I went to take care of it myself, and the Jorogumo almost got the best of me."

  My mother looked at my wound and exhaled wearily. "By Odin's ass, Malin, you should've been able to handle that yourself."

  I dropped my skirt and tried to ignore the sting I felt in my chest. Asher had gasped when he saw my leg, and he stared at me with wide eyes. Marlow had hardly reacted at all.

  I wanted to scream at her, demanding to know how she could take pity on some condemned angel like Tamerlane Fayette but she couldn't manage to care at all about her own daughter.

  But I didn't. Instead I just said, "The Jorogumo was stronger than it should've been. The poison wasn't supposed to affect me, but it nearly killed me."

  "Are you okay?" Asher asked. His body tilted toward me, and his voice was low with concern.

  "Yeah, I'll live." I forced a reassuring smile at him. "Thanks."

  "It didn't kill you, and you need to learn to fight better," Marlow interjected.

  "No, Marlow, you're not listening. Quinn was there--" I began to argue, but my mother cut me off.

  "Quinn Devane?" She snorted. "Since when did she become an expert on all things Valkyrie?"

  "At this point, I honestly feel like she knows more than you," I replied defiantly.

  Marlow narrowed her eyes. She'd been about to drink from her mug, but she stopped after I mouthed off, her lips hovering a centimeter above her coffee. "Don't even--"

  "I mean," I cut her off, "she does know enough to always kill her assignments."

  "This is exactly why I didn't invite you over here." Marlow set down her coffee on the stone end table, and opened the wooden humidor resting on it, pulling out a slender cigarillo wrapped in dark brown leaves. "I knew you'd just hold that over me."

  "Marlow!" I shouted in exasperation. "I am not browbeating you! I am trying to tell you what's going on and ask for your help."

  She scoffed as she lit her cigarillo. Then she took a long drag from it, before licking her lips and eyeing me. "What could you possibly need my help with?"

  "Figuring out what's going on," I replied simply.

  "What's going on is that I need to finish this shit with Tamerlane so he stops wreaking havoc on the world and Asher can get some closure," Marlow said. "That's plenty, isn't it?"

  I pursed my lips and nodded. "Yeah, that's plenty."

  She cleared her throat. "Now, as I was telling Asher before you interrupted us, I have a contact. She's always made it a point to know everything about everything. I reached out to her last night, and she said she'd be willing to meet with us."

  "Does she know anything about Tamerlane Fayette?" Asher asked.

  "I didn't ask her anything directly yet," Marlow said. "I didn't want to set off any alarms. But if Tamerlane is still alive somewhere, she'll know about him."

  "How can you be so sure?" I pressed.

  "It's what she does. She's over six hundred years old, and she's managed to accumulate a lot of knowledge and a lot of friends in that time," she explained.

  "Six hundred?" I asked. Most of the assignments had been for immortals that were only a couple hundred years old. I'd never even met anyone over four hundred years old. "Why hasn't she died?"

  "She just hasn't been chosen to return yet." Marlow shrugged and cast her annoyed gaze toward her window, which was mostly blocked by her boxes. "Now, with the ridiculous Feast of the Dead today, traffic is going to be murder, so we should get going if we want to meet with her before the sun sets."

  "Is that a stipulation?" Asher asked.

  "It's what she requested," Marlow replied simply.

  "Who is this magical all-knowing person?" I asked.

  "Cecily Stavros. She's a gorgon," she replied as if meeting with a gorgon were no big thing, and then she stood up. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to go to the bathroom, and then we can head out."

  Marlow took her cigarillo with her when she went into the restroom, but the cloud of clove-scented smoke lingered behind. Asher and I sat in the dimly lit living room as silence enveloped us.

  He leaned in closer to me, so his knee brushed up against mine, and in a low, conspiratorial tone he said, "I don't
want to sound rude, but your mother is kind of a bitch sometimes."

  I laughed. "Yeah, she certainly is."

  TWENTY-TWO

  Marlow locked up her car, then started walking. The sidewalk was crowded and cluttered with decorations and garbage, but she kept clomping on ahead, not waiting for either Asher or myself.

  "Now, she doesn't know I'm bringing the two of you," Marlow said, once we'd scrambled to catch up to her ridiculous fast pace. "So don't say too much or you'll freak her out. She doesn't like visitors."

  "Then how does she find everything out?" I asked.

  Marlow waved me off. "It's not my business how she knows her business. I just know that she's helped me track down many of my trickier assignments."

  "I thought you hadn't talked to her in a while," Asher said.

  "It's been over ten years," Marlow admitted.

  "Why has it been so long?" I asked. "If she was so helpful in the past."

  "We had a falling-out," Marlow replied vaguely, and then she stopped so short, I almost ran into her. "We're here. Well, she lives down there."

  She pointed to the narrow stairwell to her left. It was dark and dank, running so deep underground I thought it might lead us to the sewer. Leaves and trash had piled up at the bottom, blanketing the concrete in front of a keyhole doorway.

  "Have either of you ever met a gorgon before?" Marlow asked, turning back to look at Asher and me.

  I shook my head, while Asher replied, "I've seen pictures of them."

  "She won't turn you to stone," Marlow prepped us. "I mean, she can if she wants to, but it doesn't just happen automatically. But don't look directly at the snakes. It's rude."

  I was about to ask if there was anything we should know about Cecily Stavros specifically, but Marlow had turned and was already bounding down the steps. Asher and I waited politely in the darkness behind her as she knocked.

  It was a few minutes before the door finally creaked open. Her hand on the doorframe was the first thing I saw. Long red fingernails and pale skin with a few iridescent green scales trailing down the back of her hand to underneath her satin dressing gown.

  Then her face slowly materialized in the gap from the open door. At first she appeared to be a woman in her sixties--an admittedly attractive woman in her sixties, but on the older side nonetheless. Her skin looked soft and smooth, though wrinkled, with more of the green scales trailing around her hairline and down her neck toward her decolletage.