Shadow Blade (2 page)

Kira jumped to her feet, needing to get away, somewhere, anywhere. She took a step, just one, before the door opened. She turned, raising an arm to shield her eyes as brilliance flooded the hallway.

“Kira Solomon.” The light resolved itself into a bronze-skinned woman with long dark brown hair and golden eyes. The floor-length gold dress and the ornate smoky topaz necklace she wore made her look like a princess. “I am Balm. Welcome to Santa Costa, the home of Gilead.
Your new home.”

Home.
As if. She peered into the office, but there was no sign of her father.
Former father.
Already gone, probably overjoyed that he’d gotten rid of her. “So he’s just throwing me away?
Just like that?”

The woman regarded her. “He could have thrown you over the side of the ferry, or worse still, handed you over to the authorities even though what happened was a horrible accident. Instead, your father brought you here. Why do you think that is?”

The answer was easy.
“ ’Cause
I’m a freak and this is a prison for freaks?”

Balm laughed. “We’re all freaks here, but this is hardly a prison. Of course, you may think differently before we’re done.”

She stepped back, gesturing at the brightly lit doorway. “If you want to continue to sulk and feel sorry for yourself, then stay there. But if you want a warm bath, hot food that won’t make you sick, and the chance to control your gifts and their effects, then you can come with me. Choose now.”

Kira chose. Without another word, she followed the strange woman into her office, leaving her old life behind forever.

Chapter 1

T
he dagger reeked of ancient magic.

Kira Solomon stared down at it, trying not to salivate with longing. The blade itself, shining spotless and deadly, swept proudly from the ornate hilt. Swirls and symbols stood out in sharp relief on the gold-banded handle that gleamed like old ivory. Even shielded by her gloves, her palms itched with the urge to lift it, to hold it in her hands, to test its weight and sharpness.

The things she could do with such a blade.

“Well?”

Kira blinked,
then
looked up at her client and mentor, Bernie Comstock. The professor turned art dealer stood on the other side of her worktable, eyes shining in his sharp, dark face. He didn’t seem affected by the weapon’s energy, which Kira supposed was just as well. Being insensitive to magic made the art dealer good at his job. Detecting magic made Kira good at hers.

“I thought I was done with being tested, Bernie.”

“This isn’t a test, Kira,” Comstock hastened to assure her. “I trust you completely.”

She gestured to the blade, nestled in a custom-fitted gray foam core inside an aluminum travel case. “What is this, then?”

“I’m hoping you’ll tell
me.
”

“Old man.”
She suppressed a sigh mixed with exasperation and wry amusement. Even though she’d more than proven herself over the years, he still liked to slip a ringer in every now and again. The mentor in him would never die. As if she needed testing to stay sharp. If she wasn’t sharp, she’d be dead.

“Fine,” she said at last, deciding to go along with whatever game he was playing. “The markings on the handle are worn, but look to be Egyptian.” She hadn’t attempted to scan the blade with her extrasense yet, but she could feel magic radiating from it. The weapon called to her with a gentle but insistent call. She wondered what would happen when she took off her gloves and touched the dagger with her bare hands.

“The blade itself appears to be bronze, the hilt carved ivory with inset gold,” she murmured, reaching out to drag the task lamp closer before bending over the silvery case again.
“Obviously not ceremonial, since the blade is not gold and the wear on the handle suggests considerable use.
It’s in the style of daggers from the Middle Kingdom, meaning, if this is authentic, that the blade is roughly four thousand years old.”

Thrusting her hands into her lab coat’s pockets to keep from touching the handle, Kira looked at Comstock. “Considering the pristine condition of the blade, I’d say you have a very impressive fake.”

“I thought so too, especially considering where I found it.” Comstock’s expression reminded her even more of a fox. “That is real ivory and the construction of the blade doesn’t speak to modern manufacturing technology.”

Kira’s hands flexed with the need to lift the blade. She stepped back from the table instead. “This looks like something Wynne might make, except I doubt she’d be able to
keep
the creation of something so perfect a secret from me.”

“Wynne Marlowe’s one of the best metalworkers in the country and not just because she doesn’t use modern technology when re-creating ancient weaponry, although that’s certainly part of the reason,” the art dealer acknowledged. “But this isn’t her work.”

“You know this
because .
 . . ?” Wynne could certainly create a ritual weapon, Kira knew
,
especially if her husband Zoo channeled the magic into it. The boot daggers Wynne and Zoo had made for Kira proved that. She decided not to point the magical element out to her former mentor. It wasn’t like he needed to know that Zoo was a real witch.

Comstock gave her a knowing glance.
“Because, as you said, Wynne couldn’t keep this a secret from you.
I had a feeling that, once you’d seen it, you wouldn’t let something like this out of your sight.”

Kira knew he was right. The dagger was astounding as a replica. If it were the real
thing .
 . .

Her gaze dropped to the blade again. She felt a little like Gollum looking at his “Precious.” “You’re not going to tell me how you came across this, are you?”

“And deny you the joy of discovering it for yourself when you touch it?” Comstock grinned, peeling years off his multiracial, sixty-ish face. “Besides, you know I’ll share all my secrets with you only if you come to work for
me.
”

“Come on, Bernie, you know I prefer being freelance.” Kira braced one hip against the edge of the worn oak surface, idly fingering the heavy Zuni silver necklace at her throat. “I like being able to set my own schedule.”

“You’d still have autonomy,” Comstock wheedled. “You’d also have fewer expenses and full access to my clients and their collections.”

Kira hesitated, tempted as always. She worked well with Bernie. They’d clicked from the moment she’d stumbled into him at the Petrie Museum at University College in London during one of the few summers the Gilead Commission had allowed her a break from training to fight Shadow. She’d consequently transferred to the school to study under him and had then worked freelance for him when he retired from teaching, reduced his duties at the museum, and expanded his private antiquities business. At times she fantasized she’d even be happy working for him, surrounded by ancient artifacts and books, far away from people and things no human should ever know existed.

That happiness wouldn’t last, though. One day Bernie would look at her and begin to wonder. She knew the questions would start—questions about her frequent absences, her penchant for dropping everything to run off to every corner of the globe, returning home bruised if not bloodied. Eventually he’d come to realize his former apprentice was using her job as an antiquities expert as a cover for a second, deadlier career.

Not having to answer to anyone best suited her second job, a job she preferred Comstock knew nothing about. It was one thing for Bernie to believe in magic and her ability to detect and defuse it; it was another for him to believe in demons and things that go bump in the night. Even if he could accept that much, he’d still never be convinced it was her sworn duty to eliminate the baddest of the bad: the Fallen and their Shadow Avatars. A duty she’d been trained for since she was twelve by the Gilead Commission. He wouldn’t believe the Gilead Commission, the oldest and largest organization dedicated to fighting Shadow, was more advanced than the U.S. military machine and more effective than Homeland Security. He certainly wouldn’t believe she’d grown up in the Commission’s headquarters on the
island
of
Santa Costa
as the surrogate daughter of Balm, the ageless head of Gilead, or that her education had been more about learning to kill than learning to live.

Kira was a Shadowchaser, an elite fighter in Gilead’s clandestine army. Humans with extrasensory skills and paramilitary training were used to police low-level half-breeds and humans experimenting in Chaos magic. Shadowchasers were sent in when upper echelon Shadow creatures attempted to disrupt the Universal Balance and tip the world into Shadow and Chaos, usually in ways that involved high body counts.

The fact she had yet to encounter a Shadow Avatar made her lucky, she supposed. From her time in Gilead she knew humans capable of being magically and physically honed into Shadowchasers were scarce and Balm worried about the relatively small number of Chasers worldwide. It gave Kira added pressure to be good, be ready, and be a survivor.

But someday, she liked to imagine, maybe there’d be an end to Chasing, an end to the constant danger. Maybe there’d be a day when she could go to London and work with Bernie, finally go on one of the digs they’d talked about doing over the years. But, for
now .
 . .

“I like being a renegade, Bernie,” she said, giving him a brief smile. “If I worked for you or with you, there’d eventually come a day when one of us would piss the other off.”

Comstock sighed as if he hadn’t expected anything different. “You know I have to try at least once during my visits, Kira. You’re like a daughter to
me.
”

“I know.” It was part of the reason she kept an ocean between them. She had enemies, dangerous enemies, and they didn’t need to know how attached she was to the very human antiques dealer.

He looked about her cavernous room. “I must say, I’m glad to see you’re finally starting to settle in. I can’t believe you’ve been in one place two whole years—even if it does look like you just moved in. Atlanta agrees with you.”

“I needed somewhere to put my stuff,” she muttered, hunching her shoulders at the direct hit. She glanced at the organized clutter of her main floor. Boxes, notepads, and stacks of books littered the floor and lined the brick walls, piled around a haphazard mix of furniture and art that couldn’t conceal the fact that her home had been a warehouse in its former life. Since she knew where everything was and never intended to have guests over to randomly touch anything and leave their imprints behind, she saw no reason to improve her current filing system. Besides, the main reason she’d picked this converted warehouse as her pied-à-terre was because it gave her ample room to display the array of weapons and other antiques she’d collected or confiscated from around the globe. It was also the only reasonably priced place she could find with a couple of underground storage areas she’d repurposed for her altar room and more dangerous collections.

“About the blade.”
Comstock gestured, drawing her attention to the heavy oak worktable again. “Could its excellent condition be indicative of magic?”

“Oh, there’s definitely some sort of magic tied to it.” The magical lure of the dagger was obvious to Kira and that, in and of itself, made her hesitate in touching it. If there was some sort of curse or impulse attached to the dagger, she didn’t want to take hold of it with a defenseless Normal in the room. “It’s extremely powerful to have lasted all these centuries, if it’s authentic.”

“Even if it’s a replica, I’m interested in its history. It’s already valuable, but once you authenticate it, its value will be off the charts.”

She arched an eyebrow. “And if I say it’s a fake?”

“Kira.”
He raised a hand as if to reach across the table and pat her gloved hand,
then
quickly lowered it. “Its value goes up just by having you touch it.”

“Ah-ha.
Now the truth comes out.” She folded her arms across her chest, so she wouldn’t be as tempted as he was to reach out and touch. It had been years since she’d voluntarily touched another human, gloved or not. “I think I’m going to have to up my fee.”

“If you did, I’d happily pay every penny, as would anyone who knows what your word is worth. It just so happens that those who know are also the ones with the money.” He settled back in his chair. “I think I’ve revealed enough secrets for today. How long do you think you’ll need with the blade?”

“What, you’re not going to ask to stay and watch?”

“After what happened the last time I tried to watch you work?” He visibly shuddered. “Thanks, but I’ve learned my lesson. I thought my eyebrows would never grow back.”

“Be glad it was just your eyebrows, old man. It will probably take me longer than usual to scan the blade. There’s a heck of a lot of magic surrounding it, so I want to be extra careful.”

“You’re always careful, even when bumbling old art dealers burst into the room.”

“You rarely bumble, Bernie, and I’ve always suspected you weren’t—”

The art dealer cut her off. “
Kira .
 . . ”

“Hmm?”
She frowned at the odd note in his voice. “What’s wrong?”

“I, well, I just wanted to say that I’m proud of you, Kira. Despite your circumstances, you’ve become a gifted and talented young woman. I feel a fatherly pride for all you’ve accomplished.”

“Bernie.” She didn’t know what to say. Especially since the stories she’d told him of her past were just that, stories. Believable fictions that were nowhere close to the unbelievable truth.

He cleared his throat as he climbed to his feet. “Never mind the maudlin thoughts of an old man. Do you think you’ll be able to get free for dinner? We really should catch up.”

“Of course.
Are you staying at the usual place?”

“Georgian Terrace, room six-forty.”

“Got it.”
Kira straightened to her full height, topping Comstock’s five-seven
frame
by a couple of inches. She smiled, unable to resist another dig. “Shall I pick you up?”