Wings of Fire (The Obsidian Order Book 4) Read online

  “I’ll take your word for it.” I headed over to the fridge and plucked a can of soda from inside, then I looked over at Bastet. “Do you believe in the Gods?”

  “Everybody believes something, sweetness. Even those who don’t believe in anything.”

  I shook my head. “I’m remembering what my mother told me more clearly now. The day I fell through the rift and wound up here was only a few days before my eighteenth birthday… I was supposed to do something that day, recite a speech, an incantation. I can’t remember what I was supposed to say, even though I’d memorized it, but it had something to do with the Gods, with the stones.”

  “Sounds important,” she said, crunching a mouthful of cereal. “What Gods are you talking about? I don’t know if you know this, but we’ve got thousands on this side of the rifts. Everybody with an asshole has an opinion on one or another.”

  “Sure, but are they real?”

  Bastet sighed. “Have I ever seen a God with my own eyes? No. Do I feel the presence of the divine, of something larger than me, than us? Yes. All the time. Literally everywhere. I can’t escape it.”

  “That doesn’t really answer my question.”

  “You’re asking a question humans have struggled to answer since the dawn of time. Mages haven’t done much better in that department, trust me. We fight and squabble over what’s real and what isn’t just as much as humans do. It’s embarrassing.”

  I paused. “I think I met them… the Gods, I mean. Or I was supposed to meet them.”

  “Meet seems like a strong word, kitty cat.”

  “No, I mean it. My mother was pretty clear on what was going to happen to me on my eighteenth birthday. I was going to recite an incantation over the five stones and they were going to take me to meet the Gods. I was going to sign my name next to them… or something… and then I was going to inherit the stones, their power, the responsibility of looking after them.”

  Bastet stopped chewing and stared at me from behind those deep, incisive eyes. “You’re not pulling my tail?”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “For kicks? I don’t know.” Another pause. “But you’re serious… you were going to meet the Gods?”

  “That’s what my mother said… I don’t know if it ever happened.”

  “Honey, if you met the Gods, you’d know.”

  “Right? I feel like that’s something I’d remember.” I shook my head. “I can’t remember anything… fuck. Not the incantation, not even the speech I was supposed to give on my birthday. The only thing I do know was that I never made it to my birthday. I fell that same night.”

  “But the stones are here, on Earth… why else would they be on earth if not because you have some kind of tie to them?”

  I glanced at the armlet wrapped around my wrist. It was the last gift Draven had ever given me, a place where I could keep the golden singing stone. The more I looked at it, the more it seemed to hum with magic, little motes of golden light buzzing around inside. The stones had followed me through the rifts, I had no doubt about that.

  But the question still remained; why?

  I found myself suddenly gripped with a powerful urge to find the other stones. They were mine. It was my responsibility to protect them and make sure they didn’t fall into the wrong hands. Two of them already had, and for all I knew, Valoel had the fifth. I had to find it. It wasn’t like I’d been sitting on my hands for the past week, but until now I didn’t even know if the fifth stone was on Earth.

  Given that three of them had wound up on my doorstep, I had to trust that the fifth would do the same. Somehow, the stones were making their way back to me. All I had to do was reach out for them and take them. I strode across the living room and grabbed my leather jacket, sliding my arms inside once it was around my shoulders.

  “Going somewhere?” Bastet asked, still going through her cereals.

  “I have to do something,” I said. “I don’t know what, I think I’ll figure it out when I’m out there, but I had that dream for a reason. I need to go.”

  “Don’t let me stop you, sweetness. Just, be safe, and don’t bring the baddies back around my neck of the woods, ‘kay?”

  “I won’t.”

  I shut the door behind me once I’d left her apartment and headed for the stairs. My instincts tugged me toward the roof, my phantom kithe tingling at my back. The old me could take to the skies, but I couldn’t. I’d have to stick to the ground, searching for my prey like a wolf instead of an eagle.

  Not that it bothered me. Wolves were cool.

  I hit the street in my stride, pushing through the door into the cold, New York night like I had a purpose. Of course, I did have a purpose, but how I was going to achieve it… at least, I hadn’t been until now. I was going to find one of the Crimson Hunters tonight. No, not just any Crimson Hunter—I was going to find Corax, the fiend. If anyone was going to have information for me, it was going to be him.

  I’d tussled with him before. He was big, and strong. An able hunter. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find his room riddled with trophies from all the creatures he’d killed—humanoid and animal alike. Big guys didn’t scare me, though. Big guys were usually all talk and no bite, and they were easily tricked.

  At least, most of them were. Six was the sharpest Serakon I’d ever met. Even though Draven and I parted ways badly the last time we’d seen each other, I’d kept my commitments to the Black Fortress, to the Order, and to Six as best I could. I’d been training her ever since, teaching her how to fight, how to use her magic.

  She was going to be better than me one day, and I didn’t have a problem with that. This world needed more people like her. Smart, agile, hard-hitters who fought on the side of all things just and good; especially if we were headed for something… terrifying. Every fiber of my being told me Valoel was going to take us exactly there, somewhere terrifying. Somewhere from which there’d be no return.

  I didn’t know exactly what he was capable of, but I knew enough about him to know why he wasn’t exactly playing nice with the rest of us. He was angry. Angry that he’d been abandoned at birth. Angry that he’d been sent away to live with the House of Night. Angry that I’d lived the life he believed he should’ve lived.

  It was hard to reconcile that.

  I mean, what do you even say? I’m sorry was probably going to be too weak to cut it. And there was no guarantee he wouldn’t take an honest apology as some kind of personal attack and just get even more bat-shit crazy. We were past I’m sorry and well into it’s you or me now, and as long as he had only two stones and I found the fifth, maybe—just maybe—I could swing this around in my favor.

  But right now, first thing’s first; I had a hunter to hunt down.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The weird thing about the Crimson Hunters was, evading them was tricky business, but finding them? Not so much. The Crimson Hunters held hunting grounds. Sacred places where enough prey was present for them to play their games with; the kind of place others like me would go to avoid running into people. To find the Hunters, all I needed to do was head into the nastiest, most dangerous neighborhoods in the city and flash a little magic. Simple, except I was going into one of the nastiest, most dangerous neighborhoods in New York.

  I probably wouldn’t have done this under any other circumstance, but the situation was pretty urgent.

  I got off the S-Train onto a platform with barely any lighting on it. Already the air was thick with filth and desperation. With one hand in my pocket and the other clutching my knife at my side, I headed off the platform and got onto the street. A car with a broken windshield and what looked like bullet holes rolled by on the street beside me and stopped at the corner.

  For a moment I thought I’d been seen, that it was waiting for me, but humans didn’t usually see others. Their eyes rolled off us provided we weren’t attracting too much attention. No, the car had stopped to accept a hooker standing on the corner. She sauntered over to the window, spoke to the
driver, then got inside. The car peeled away slowly, disappearing around the bend.

  I kept walking, moving slowly past the night-owls roaming the streets. This was the kind of place where drug-deals happened out in the open, where homeless people huddled in large groups for protection, where you weren’t far from the sound of a gunshot or the smell of blood. If it weren’t for that strange aura I had that made humans ignore me, I probably would’ve had a little trouble in here.

  Still, you try telling my heart to slow down some. It was already pumping hard and fast inside of my chest. I could feel it against my fingertips, in my toes, in my throat. This place had my hackles up, and I’d come here voluntarily. Had I gone insane? Had it finally happened?

  I wasn’t sure how long I’d been walking for. I wasn’t really keeping track. I was a little more focused on finding just the right spot, the perfect place to lure a Crimson Hunter to me. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for until I found it. A quiet little basketball court.

  A chain-link fence went all the way around it, barbed at the top like a prison yard. If there were once nets hanging from the metal hoops, they were long gone now. The ground was hard gravel, with faded lines painted into it to mark the court’s boundaries and free-shot rings.

  The chain-link gate was open, so I let myself inside. Surrounding the court, in a U-shape, was a residential complex. Many of the lights were off. Some weren’t. A dog barked at the night from one of the apartments. From another, a man was screaming at a woman. Beneath it all, though—crickets. They sang through the night, despite the gloom around them.

  I slid my knife into my pocket, cracked my knuckles, and pretended to shoot a few hoops. Basketball had been one of the first sports I’d ever heard of. It wasn’t long after I fell that I found myself living near a court, if you could call what Fate and I was doing living. Once I’d figured out the rules of the game, I started challenging players for money. Most of them paid up. Those that didn’t got their noses broken. Or I got mine broken.

  Those were the days, huh?

  After giving the place a decent scan-down, I decided it was time. I flexed my fingers, then made them into a fist. The gold stone pressed against my skin started to glow, the light shooting out from the cuff of my leather jacket. Golden, glittering motes came dancing out along the back of my hand, twirling around my fingers. At my back, my brilliant kithe emerged, bathing the miserable court with light.

  “Alright,” I said to no one, readying my dagger. “Here I am… come and take the bait.”

  Nothing happened for a time, though, and I was starting to wonder if I’d made a mistake—if I’d come to the wrong neighborhood. Impatience started to grow inside of me, and instead of just standing around, I decided to aim the palm of my hand at the ground and yell “Veshrim!”

  A beam of light shot out of me and struck the gravel, taking a little bite out of it and sending pieces flying in all directions. My hand vibrated with the magic now coursing within me. I could feel it in my chest, like someone strumming the same note on a guitar only I couldn’t hear the note; I could just feel the vibration.

  Another beat passed.

  “Seriously?” I asked the sky, “Nobody’s gonna come at me?”

  I probably spoke a little too soon. Movement caught my attention, and I spun around to face it. It was a man, and he was coming at me fast; from inside the basketball court. Had he just manifested out of thin air? Had he always been there? It didn’t matter. I had only a split second to turn his blade away with my dagger, and I managed only because his sword had caught the light from my wings.

  He was big, but also lean. His canines were long and sharp, his eyes pointed and almost feral, and he had a mane of long, thick red hair. Various bits of leather had been sewn together to create a kind of body armor around him; nothing that would stop my knife from finding an organ, but also nothing that would slow him down.

  “You’re either incredibly stupid, or this is some kind of trap,” he purred. His body posture suggested he was ready to strike at the drop of a hat. I was, too.

  “You’re the one who showed up, so if this is a trap, who’s the stupid one?”

  “Silence! Who are you, and why are you here?”

  “My name is Seline, and I’m looking for the biggest, baddest Crimson Hunter around. So, not you. Could you get Corax for me?”

  He scowled at that, and barred his teeth. “Do you know who I am?” he snarled.

  I shrugged. “Should I?”

  “My name is Pain, and I come from the broken mountains of Valdoon where the air is fire and ash, and nothing grows. An exile, for weeks I survived without food, with barely any water, with only my need for revenge keeping me alive. I swore one day I would—”

  I flipped my dagger around in my hand, held the tip of the blade in my fingers, and tossed the knife at Mister Pain. He was too slow to dodge it. The knife went in through his chest with enough strength to send him sprawling to the ground, his own blade clattering away from his hand. I rolled my eyes.

  “Do all of you guys like to introduce yourselves like that?” I asked, slowly approaching where he lay. “Because you totally open yourselves up for something like this.”

  He reached for his blade, but I kicked it away from his hand. When he realized he’d never be able to grab it, he tried to pull my knife out of his chest, but then he thought better of it. Pulling it out was probably going to kill him outright. It had probably pierced his lung, judging by its position—and where I’d aimed.

  I didn’t want him to die, at least not right away. I needed him to talk, first.

  “Get you…” he gargled, “I’ll… get you…”

  “Doesn’t look like it, buddy,” I said, squatting near him. “I could heal you, probably save your life, if you promise to do two things for me. Number one, you tell me where I can find Corax; don’t bullshit me, I’ll know. Number two, you get the hell out of New York. Your hunting days are over. Find yourself a nice quiet village to settle in, y’know? Live a wholesome life. Bake pies or something.”

  The movement in his eyes told me he was at least considering my offer. His face was puckered, and already blood was starting to trickle down the side of his mouth. He turned his pained—get it?—eyes on me, and I watched them strain under the pressure of the decision in front of him. Though his teeth were clenched so tightly I thought they’d crack against each other, he nodded, accepting my terms.

  “Great,” I said, wrapping my hand around my knife. “Now, how about you tell me where Corax is first, and then I take the knife out? I warn you though, it’s gonna suck when I do. Just try not to die too fast.”

  “Bh… bhh…” Pain tried to say, but he was having trouble breathing.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Beh… behhhh…” he cleared his throat. More blood oozed past his lips.

  “One more time. You can do it.”

  “… behind you.”

  I frowned at him, then my ears perked up, the hairs on the nape of my neck stood on their ends, and my skin prickled all over. This time, I didn’t have time to react. The blade was in my side before I could even roll over Pain’s body. I wanted to scream as the ice-cold sensation of the knife entering my skin registered in my brain, but I didn’t.

  Instead, before the knife could be twisted, I kicked back with my foot at the person behind me. I felt the knife slide out, and the rush of warmth that came after. Blood. I went to pull my dagger out of Pain’s chest, but he grabbed my hand and stopped me. I punched him hard in the face and he let go of my hand.

  Free to move, I pulled my knife out of his chest and rolled over his body, spinning around fast to face the person who’d stabbed me. It was him. Corax. He stood across from me, his body all rippling muscle and whirling red marks glowing as brightly as his eyes. His wings rose out of his shoulders, huge and leathery—batlike, almost.

  “I hear you’ve been looking for me,” he said, slurring his words like his mouth was full of spit. Like he was saliva
ting at the sight of me.

  “You know what they say about summoning the devil,” I said, holding a hand against my wound.

  “Say his name, and he will show. I’m aware of the human myths.

  I looked over at my dagger, still wedged in Pain’s chest. “Any chance you can toss my weapon over to me and we can make this a fair fight?”

  Corax stared at the blade, then approached his wounded brother in arms. Pain reached a hand out toward him, a bloody hand, but Corax didn’t take it. Instead, Corax pulled the knife out of Pain’s chest… then did nothing else. Blood poured from the wound, spilling out of Pain’s chest and falling around him like a crimson volcano.

  Pain struggled for a moment, and there was nothing left of him.

  “That’s cold, man…” I said.

  “He was a fool to let himself be killed by the likes of you.”

  “Or you could say he met a far superior fighter?”

  Corax narrowed his eyes, scowling, but said nothing.

  “That’s a no, then? Okay. My dagger?”

  The fiend held my blade tightly between his fingers, no sign that he was planning on giving it up.

  “Another no,” I said, nodding. “Alright, we’ll do this the hard way.”

  “I’ll give you a head-start, little bird. I suggest you take it.”

  “Oh, you thought I was going to run?” I pulled magic out of the stone and pushed it through me, through my arm, my hand, and into the wound. “Vigo,” I whispered, expecting a warm, magic pulse to fill me… but it didn’t. Corax’s red markings seemed to brighten instead, like they were reacting to my power. Was he stopping me from using my magic somehow?

  Shit.

  It looked like I was going to be taking that head-start after all. If nothing else, it would give me a second to think.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I was bleeding pretty bad, and running out of options. Hiding behind a vent on the top of a high-rise overlooking New York, I pressed my hand to the wound in my side. My hand came away slick with hot blood. Dripping was the word that came to mind. The sight of it made my stomach twist inside out.