Page 26

Kerry

“Okay,” Gigi chirped, “now that we know we can all play nicely together, Mimi, could you find Astrid Kasparian’s ghost?”

“Of course!”

She led us down a hallway to a large conference room. By then, I had my walls back up, but I didn’t wanna push it—or Titus. When Mimi took the chair at one end of the table, I sat as far away from her as I could get. Jax and Gigi sat on my left and Rome and Mira on my right.

Josef took the empty chair next to Gigi and Titus went to sit next to Mira, but Rome growled and changed places with her, which almost made me smile.

“You’re a watcher?” Josef made conversation with Gigi.

“Yes. I can bend time and space, and teleport limited distances.”

“You have quite a team here, Harker.” He waved a hand around the table. “A watcher, a wrangler, and three strong warriors.”

“All you’re missing,” Titus added, “is a healer.”

“Yeah, I know.” I gritted my teeth.

“You always know how to put your foot in your mouth, don’t you?” Mimi shook her head.

“What? It’s true.”

“Your girl’s a healer?” Josef asked.

I nodded.

“And a very strong one.” Gigi gave me a fierce look. “Not just in power, either.”

I knew what she was trying to say. Gemma was brave and determined.

And if her life’s on the line, she’ll fight. She’ll fight as long as she can. My iron-winged angel.

“And you’re wrong about me,” Mira piped up, drawing Josef and Titus’ eyes to her. “I’m an artificer, not a warrior.”

“Really?” Josef was delighted. “What would I have to do to convince you to leave your team and join us?”

“You can’t.”

“We have money. Lots and lots of money.” He wiggled his eyebrows, and I wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be funny or not. “Does that sway you?”

“No.”

“Rome could come, too.” He grinned. “Everyone in Valhalla would welcome you both with open arms. A Valkyrie and a Viking.”

“Valhalla?” Jax’s eyes gleamed with curiosity behind the lenses of his glasses.

“As in the Norse realm of eternal feasting and fighting?” Gigi asked.

“Harker, you didn’t tell them about Valhalla?” Titus shot me a disgusted look.

I shrugged and kept my eyes down. If he pushed me again, I knew my control wouldn’t hold, so I played it safe and stayed silent.

“Valhalla is the outpost here in the Big Apple,” Josef explained.

“Most major U.S. cities have one. We operate under the Council and with their support. Those of us who protect the borders of Valhalla call ourselves the Huskarls. It’s an old term for something like a bodyguard warrior from ancient Scandinavia. ”

A look from Josef, and Titus pulled up his jacket sleeve to show the tattoo encircling his wrist. Having seen it a dozen times before, I didn’t need to look to know it was a line of runes between two bands of knotwork.

“What does it say?” Gigi wanted to know.

“‘A wolf cares not for the opinions of sheep’,” Titus said. “The knotwork is the same for everyone, but you pick your own proverb.”

“My warden’s says, ‘A shield to friends, an ax to enemies’,” I said.

“Hank Bishop.” Titus nodded. “A true berserker, all right. Still holds a few Huskarl records.”

“Remind me again why you two hijacked my job?” Mimi tapped her fingernails against the table.

“The Alchemists have become a nuisance.” Josef frowned at her. “We need to shut them down, or at least drive them from the metropolitan area.”

“A nuisance?” Blue smoke blew out of my nose in a rush and I knew cinders would fly when I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t hold back. “You call rape and murder a nuisance ?”

A ball of rusty orange whammed me square in my chest and it was only when I fell back into my chair that I realized I’d been standing at all.

I heard Jax ask Gigi to change seats with him, but was too busy shaking my head, trying to get my brains unscrambled, to pay attention.

“Go ahead, Mimi, while I hold him.”

“I think he’s out of it, Jax.” That was Mira’s voice. “He looks like you rung his bell but good.”

“Maybe.” Jax sounded doubtful. “But once he gets his shield up, I can’t reach him, so I’ll keep him down before he can. And don’t anyone get too comfortable. He can break free of my hold if he really wants to.”

“Kid’s been walking a tightrope for too long.” Rome shook his head. “I have no idea how he’s still doing it. I would have torn somebody in half by now.”

Gigi explained the whole story, all the way back to banishing the Hellhounds in North Carolina, and I listened, but my senses were dim and my thoughts slow. Jax couldn’t put me to sleep like Gemma could or do Chance’s apathy thing, but he’d gotten real good at holding me in what he called stasis.

I wanted to fight my way out of it, but there was no need to put that strain on him, especially as he was only trying to help me. The more I struggled, the harder he had to work to hold me. With a sigh, I gave in and stopped fighting him.

Finally, Mimi reached out for Astrid Kasparian.

Nothing happened—or so I thought.

“She’s here,” Mimi murmured, “but won’t show herself. Too many males present.”

“Should we leave?” Titus asked.

“She says she’ll speak to me.” Mimi shook her head. “I can repeat it aloud, if that is acceptable.”

“Why would we doubt you?” Rome waved one hand. “You have no reason to lie. Go for it.”

Through Mimi, Astrid recounted the worst—and last—date of her life. A boy in one of her classes had asked her out and she’d accepted, even though she was a freshman and he was a fifth-year senior.

“What school were you at?” Mimi asked, then answered in a slightly accented voice. “Columbia.”

“That’s weird.” Mira’s eyebrows flew up.

“His name was Christopher.” Mimi’s eyes rolled, seeing something only she could see. “I don’t know his last name, or I can’t remember it. He seemed nice and I was lonely. My father always warned me not to trust strangers, but I never imagined dinner and a movie would kill me.”

She gripped the arms of her chair and went as stiff as a statue, and Titus fell out of his chair to kneel next to her.

“Mimi?” he murmured. “Are you okay?”

She blinked and seemed to come back to herself. Shivering, she nodded, and he rubbed his hands up and down her arms.

“He assaulted her, then killed her.” Tears flowed from her brown eyes. “He tossed her body in a garbage bin!”

Titus scooped her up in his arms and she clung to his neck, muttering in his ear.

Movement caught my eyes, which were all I could move under Jax’s hold, and I glanced over to see Josef rubbing his forehead with one hand. He looked a little green.

Is he trying to go off the protection charms? What would be the point of that?

“Harker,” he interrupted my thoughts, “do you know how long the Alchemists have been in operation?”

I looked at Gigi.

“Tell … him.” I had to struggle against Jax’s hold to answer, and the words came out mushy and slow. “About … the … Box.”

As she recounted our interview with Reilly Argaud, I watched Titus and the way he cared for Mimi. It blew my mind to see the most fearsome Huskarl in Valhalla cradle his fiancee like a baby and soothe her with little kisses.

The last time I saw you , you were up to your knees in the guts of human cultists, swinging a ginormous battleax like you were going for MVP on the All-Berserker squad.

Josef asked to hear more about the connection between the Alchemists and the necromancer named Khaydari, and the others filled him in.

By the time Rome retold the visit to Pepper Crane’s, Titus was back in his seat and Mimi curled up in his lap like an overgrown kitten. I saw her eyes were red, but she had a determined set to her jaw that reminded me so much of Gemma, my chest squeezed again.

I sighed.

“Jax … lemme … go.”

“Got the tiger back in its cage?”

“Rawr.”

The pressure vanished and I took a deep breath, then shook out my arms and rolled my neck.

“Kerry Harker.” Mimi looked right at me. “You will find Astrid Kasparian’s murderer and you will kill him. Tell Hank that the Council will need a dedicated clean-up crew for a big job, with lots of assets to freeze and seize as well as a fair amount of criminal activity to sort out.”

“Are you clairvoyant as well as a medium?” Jax asked.

“The future is ever in flux.” She shook her head. “Our smallest choices rearrange it. My mother was an oracle, however, and I have some precognition. It helps me draw more accurate conclusions, but I wouldn’t call them predictions.”

“Are you usually right?” Gigi smiled.

“She hasn’t been wrong yet.” Josef smiled back at her.

“And remember, she can see anything in the past she wants to.” Titus shrugged. “Right up until the present moment.”

“Can you see Gemma?” I jumped to my feet. “ Where is she?! ”

Jax hit me again, hard enough to slam me back into my chair, but I managed to growl at him.

“Dude, your eyes are glowing and your hair’s standing on end.”

I ain’t gonna survive this, am I? I’m gonna have a heart attack before I can even find her.

“In the crystal ball,” Mimi took pity on me, “I could only see her up until that djinni teleported her away. I can sense her living soul, but she’s shielded from my sight.”

She’s alive. At least she’s alive.

Relief nearly knocked me out and I only half heard Jax talking to Mimi.

“Oh, hey, see if you can call up one of Argaud’s thralls. Her name was Aspen Abernathy.”

Lurching forward, I tried to warn her, but Jax musta thought I was about to go full tiger this time. His hold locked down on me so tight, I couldn’t even move my eyes. All I could do was sit there with my mouth half open as Hell opened up under our feet.