CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Yardley adjusted her black sunglasses, smoothed down her black dress. The designer silk outfit ended just above the knee, but wasn’t so short that anyone would be able to see her blue thong when she stepped out of the limo.
“Ready?” she asked her team.
“You sure about this?” one of her girls asked.
“Don’t worry. We’ve got the easy part. And you guys are all set?” Yardley pointed to her own ear and her team nodded. Each of her sisters had in an earpiece so they could hear what was going on with Chloe and the others. Yardley didn’t have one in, though. She was afraid Brianna would see it.
“You hear me, Tessa?” one of the girls asked. “They’re ready, Yardley.”
“Great.” Yardley nodded at her team. “Performance time, ladies.” The driver opened the door of her limo and Yardley stepped out. Cameras went off and people filmed her with their cell phones. It was Los Angeles, so there was no sense of proper grieving. Instead, journalists and fans called out her name, acting like this was a movie premiere rather than a man’s funeral.
A man who’d lost his skin.
Although that bit of information had been kept out of the news. Most likely by Brianna herself.
Yarldey’s team surrounded her and walked with her to the church stairs.
Brianna waited at the top, wearing a sparkling designer gold dress and designer, six-inch gold pumps. Accenting that already bright outfit were diamond earrings, a diamond necklace, and multiple diamond bracelets.
The woman managed to stand out in a crowd of megastars.
That was not by accident.
When Yardley reached her, Brianna threw her arms wide, tears pouring down her face.
“Are you okay?” Brianna asked, hugging Yardley tight.
“I’m . . . okay.”
Brianna pulled away and Yardley suddenly had the worst feeling. As if dread and foreboding had been wrapped around her entire body.
She didn’t know why she felt that way. Brianna hadn’t said or done anything to cause it. Her tears seemed real.
“Come,” Brianna said, taking her hand, but that’s when she noticed Yardley’s watch. “A Rolex?” she asked.
“No. A Patek Phillipe. The Ladies Twenty~4.”
“How many diamonds?”
“A lot.”
“I love it.” Brianna lifted her head and purred, “At some point . . . I must have it.”
Yardley didn’t know what that meant. Did Brianna plan to buy her own—a lack of originality that annoyed Yardley in general—or did she mean to take it off of Yardley’s dead body?
A situation that would annoy Yardley quite specifically.
Brianna led Yardley into the church, somberly greeting each person by name as they passed.
Brianna moved down the aisle until they reached the front pew.
The family section.
Yardley tried to pull back, to sit somewhere—anywhere—else. But Brianna tightened her grip, nearly crushing Yardley’s hand, and tugged her forward.
“It’ll be great exposure,” Brianna whispered before she made some sobbing elderly gentleman move over so they could sit down.
Mortified, Yardley glanced back at her team, but what could they do? Especially since Yardley felt certain that Brianna would make a scene if given half the chance. Something this family did not need.
So, Yardley sat down and hoped that her fellow Crows were finding out something useful.
Jace walked back into the stairwell of the artist agency that still had Betty’s name on the letterhead.
“It’s clear at her office, but we’ll have to be careful. Some agents are actually working today, but they’re holed up in their offices and security is in that back room with all the cameras.”
“There are cameras?” Kera asked.
“Not in Betty’s office. Mostly on her vault and in her agents’ offices because she doesn’t trust any of them.”
“Why does Betty have a vault?”
“I think that’s where she keeps the screaming souls of her past assistants,” Erin said. “At least that’s what everyone in her office thinks. Personally, I like to pretend it’s just a joke.”
“Don’t worry too much about the cameras,” Chloe explained. “Security is made up of shifters and they understand what’s important.”
“Then why are we sneaking around?”
“The agents. Until we really know what’s going on, we don’t want them reporting back to Brianna that Betty’s friends were hanging around. So be quiet and careful but don’t panic.”
Erin joked, “So don’t start killing people if they happen to see us?”
The others laughed but Kera didn’t. “How is that funny?” she snapped.
Staring at her, Erin said, “We just had a wonderful, relaxing party barely a few hours ago. How are you already so uptight?”
“Relaxing party? How’s that eye?”
Erin’s non-swollen eye narrowed, but before Jace’s two friends could start slapping each other silly, Chloe said, “Jace, Erin, Tessa, Kera, Annalisa, take the office with me. The rest of you, keep everyone else off our back. Nicely.”
The team moved and as Jace walked toward Betty’s old office, she immediately felt a twinge of nostalgia.
Many good times she’d had here with Betty and some of the Elder Crows.
Jace loved just sitting and listening to them talk. And being chatty bitches, they didn’t need Jace to say a word. It had been heaven.
Until now, Jace hadn’t thought for a moment that she wouldn’t experience those times again. But seeing what had changed in Betty’s office . . .
Brianna had clearly made it her own.
There was just so much gold. And mirrors.
Apparently she loved looking at herself.
“It’s like a narcissist’s wet dream,” Annalisa muttered.
“I don’t see anything obvious,” Kera noted. “Just the office of a tacky woman with an unhealthy love of the color gold.”
“We still have to check Betty’s private room.” Erin pushed open the door to the bathroom, a luxurious space with a shower and a sitting room. She led them inside and, on the farthest end, she pressed her hand against the marble wall.
A latch unhitched and the wall opened to reveal another room.
“Betty used this space for Crow business,” Erin explained as they all moved inside. “And sleeping with male actors she thought were hot.”
The windowless room was pitch-black, but Erin moved her hand along the wall until she found the switch.
Jace stepped back in surprise at what she saw.
There was no blood. No carnage. But there were nine sacrifices of men and women.
And all suicides from the looks of it.
They’d drunk something and then had lain down to die, their naked torsos draped over the legs of each other until they formed a perfect circle. Their empty wine cups were still gripped in their hands. Smiles on their faces.
Blood anointed their foreheads, chests, and groins. And they’d been tattooed with ancient runes.
They were all young and beautiful.
Standing still, the Crows looked around the room, but they didn’t see any demons. No spirits. Nothing had been called, from what they could see, that would warrant such a sacrifice.
Then the first one moved. A jerk, really. The entire body sort of spasming in death. Because they were dead.
“They’re coming back,” Annalisa warned.
But Jace didn’t think so. “No. They’re not coming back. They’re a portal.”
Chloe pulled out her blades and everyone followed suit. Seconds later a fist punched through the chest of one of the sacrifices. The fist pulled back but was quickly followed by two big arms. Hands slapped against the ground, blood and organs pouring on the floor as a man pulled himself out, blood-soaked leathery wings following.
“Oh fuck,” Chloe breathed out, motioning to the others to back away. “Go,” she softly ordered. A command Chloe had never given before. A retreat? Crows didn’t retreat.
“What?” Tessa asked, as shocked as Jace.
“Go. Now.”
Kera turned toward the door but it slammed in her face. “Guys?”
“Tear it down!” Chloe screamed at her and Kera turned to her side, angled her shoulder, and ran full-out, slamming her body into the door, ramming it off its hinges.
She and the door landed on the floor.
“Get out!” Chloe yelled, pushing everyone back into the bathroom. “Out!”
Jace looked over her shoulder. More men had torn their way out of the sacrifices. Like full-grown newborns, they were naked but covered in blood and bile and waste.
The Crows all scrambled into the office, Chloe slamming the bathroom door shut and pressing her back against it.
“We have to go!”
“What’s happening?” Tessa demanded. “We’ve fought demons before, Clo.”
“These aren’t demons.” She let out a terrified breath. “They’re Hel’s Carrion.”
The air left Jace’s lungs and even Annalisa and Erin showed fear as they backed away and moved toward the front door.
Only Kera seemed confused, looking around at her sisters.
The bathroom door jerked and Chloe shoved back, trying to keep it closed with her body.
“Chloe, run!” Tessa ordered.
But their leader shook her head. “Go! Now!”
Yet Jace knew they wouldn’t leave their leader. Not to face the Carrion alone.
“Kera!” Erin barked. And the battle-buddies who rarely got along in everyday life became a mighty team. Understanding each other without more than a word.
Kera dashed forward and grabbed Chloe around the waist, tearing her from the door. Erin took her place in front of it, and flames leaped from her fingers and then her hands. She began to chant and the flames grew until she held two lines of bright orange flame. Like two whips, one wrapped around each arm.
Erin unleashed those whips, slashing through the door. The Carrion roared in rage from the other side and burst through the wood.
They were all big, strapping Vikings of old who hadn’t been taken by Odin or Freyja, but Hel herself, goddess of Helheim, land of the dead, and the one Nordic deity who truly did not answer to anyone, even the mighty Odin. Some of the Carrion had been damaged by Erin’s flame, parts of them slashed, but already that skin was healing.
Erin spun one of the fire whips above her and when she lashed out, it wrapped around the neck of one of the Carrion.
Erin pulled, trying to remove the head—a move that had worked for her in the past. But not this time.
As one, the Carrion roared again. They had fangs and their eyes were green and black.
Erin released the Carrion’s throat and clapped her hands together. When she pulled them apart, a wall of flame spread out from one side of the room to the other.
“Go!” Erin yelled at her sister-Crows. “Gooooooo!”
They ran, charging out the door, into the hallway past shocked agents and security guards, and down the fancy stairs that had won the building’s architect important awards.
The Carrion screamed a battle call from the office.
“Move!” Chloe ordered seconds before the entire building shook, all of the Crows tumbling down the massive stairs until they hit the first floor.
Jace was the first to get to her feet. When she looked back at the stairs, she expected to see the Carrion right behind them, but all she saw were the agents and security guards who’d tumbled down the stairs themselves.
The human agents were still too stunned to move, but the shifter security guards were getting to their feet.
One shifter, a woman whose auburn eyes suddenly changed to bright yellow like a dog’s, stared past Jace to the front exit. As Jace watched, the woman’s lips pulled back over growing fangs, and claws eased out of her hands.
Jace knew what the shifter saw. She knew what scared her.
Jace pointed at the humans. “Get them out of here,” she ordered the security team. “Now!”
As the shifters moved, picking up the few agents and running back up the stairs and out another exit, Jace finally turned around and faced what was behind her.
The Carrion blocked the front door—and the Crows’ way out.
“Are you frightened, slave?” their leader asked in Old Norse, his voice dark and gravelly. He bent down so that he could look Jace in the eyes. “Because you should be.”
“And you should leave, now,” she replied, also in Old Norse, surprising the Carrion.
Their leader studied Jace, but before she could convince him, Chloe got to her feet . . . and extended her wings.
“Crow!” one of the Carrion roared.
Weapons were pulled and one of them slashed at Chloe. She reared back, but the blade wouldn’t have touched her anyway. Kera’s axe—a weapon given to her by Freyja—blocked and held it, the runes on her handle glowing.
As she struggled with the Carrion in front of her, another came up behind her. Erin tried to step in but was backhanded, sending the redhead spinning across the room and into the wall.
Seeing her sister-Crow harmed, treated like the slave these ancient Vikings believed them to be, had rage rising up in Jace, splintering and racing through her veins.
Jace screamed and charged all the Carrion, no longer caring about their powers, her fear, any of it. She bellowed and ran at the leader. The one she couldn’t stop focusing on. The one she automatically hated. She ran at him, launched herself into his arms, and rammed her blade right into his eye.
He cried out in pain. So, she might not be able to kill the Carrion with Crow weapons, but she could hurt him.
She could hurt him! She could hurt him! She could hurt him!
Jace held on, one arm around his neck, the other ramming that blade in again and again and again and again.
Even as she felt her skin burn where it touched the Carrion, she refused to release him, because she wanted him to hurt!
She kept going until hands gripped her waist and Jace was finally yanked from the Carrion.
“Light him up!” Kera bellowed.
On her knees, blood pouring from a wound on the side of her head, Erin flung her arm forward. A fireball exploded from her hand and slammed into the Carrion covering the eye Jace had fucked up. Flames covered him and he dropped to the ground, trying to put them out.
Tucking a struggling Jace under one arm, Kera reached down and grabbed Erin by the back of her T-shirt. Chloe and the others ran past them and out the front doors.
“Go!” Chloe ordered and Kera ran out, holding on to Jace, who was snarling and snapping like a wild animal, clawing at Kera’s arm with her talons.
Once outside, Kera thought they were going to keep running, but Chloe and Tessa stopped about fifty feet away from the front door.
The men came out, the one who’d been on fire still smoking but seemingly unharmed. So Erin’s flame could hurt these men, but not kill them.
Then again, Kera had the feeling these men weren’t really alive enough to actually kill. Not in the normal, everyday sense of the word alive anyway.
“Why aren’t we running?” Kera asked Erin.
“Because of the sun. They can walk around in it, but they’re vulnerable. In the dark, they’re at their strongest.”
“What are they?”
“They’re warriors from Helheim. The gods call them Hel’s Carrion.”
“Why?”
“For they feed on decaying flesh.”
“Oh . . . well, that’s lovely.” Kera gripped a still-struggling Jace tighter. “And I thought the Crows never run from anything.”
“We’re Crows, Kera. We’re smart enough to know when to run. And if you ever face a Carrion alone, in the dark . . .” Erin looked at her and said in the most serious tone Kera had ever heard from her, “Then you fucking run.”
“Why are you here?” Chloe called out to the men. “Why aren’t you in Helheim where you belong?”
The biggest of the men lowered his head and yanked double-edged blades from his belt, but before he had a chance to do anything, Jace started yelling in a language Kera didn’t know.
Yelling and struggling and completely losing her goddamn mind. Her friend had gone over the edge.
And yet . . . the Carrion didn’t move any closer. They didn’t charge.
Then Jace did something Kera had never seen before. She raised her hand and began to chant. She was casting a spell.
At least . . . that’s what Kera was guessing because the lead Carrion suddenly made a circling motion with his index finger and the group of nine unleashed their wings and took to the skies.
Once they were gone, Jace lowered her arm . . . and burst into hysterical tears.
“Great,” Erin sighed. “Now comes the crying.”
“Shut up!” Jace yelled . . . while crying.
“Back to the car,” Chloe ordered and they moved, dashing toward the two SUVs parked on the street.
Kera handed Jace off to Erin so she could drive, started the engine, and took off once everyone was inside and the doors closed.
“I don’t know what you did,” Tessa said to Jace, “but it was amazing. You saved our asses back there.”
“I didn’t do anything,” she sobbed out.
“What are you talking about? You used some spell, right?”
“It was something I read while working at the Protectors. But to be honest . . . I was just saying words.” And the “s” in words just seemed to go on forever as the crying became worse.
“Well,” Kera said while making a wild-ass turn onto Santa Monica Boulevard, “whatever you did was brilliant, Jace.”
They all fell silent, the only sounds in the SUV Jace’s crying until Erin rested her arm on the back of the passenger seat and asked, “Anyone else feel like we’ve forgotten something?”
Ski reached down and grabbed the wrists attached to the hands wrapped around Bear’s throat and yanked them off.
“What did I do?” Bear demanded.
“You keep talking!” Stieg Engstrom snarled back.
Ski glared over at Rundstöm. “Are you going to help me?”
Pressing his hands against the wall behind the couch in Brianna’s apartment in downtown Los Angeles, trying to find any hidden rooms, Rundstöm glanced at Ski and replied, “No.”
Ski shoved a still-rampaging Engstrom back. “Can we just get through this, please?”
“Then tell him to shut up.” Engstrom headed toward one of the woman’s many closets.
“I didn’t do anything,” Bear complained.
“I know.” Ski patted Bear’s big shoulder. “Don’t sweat it. Let’s just get this done and get away from them.”
“It hurts, Ski . . . so much stupid.”
“I know, Bear. I know.”
“I don’t think there’s anything here,” Siggy Kaspersen announced, dropping onto one of Brianna’s gold couches. The furniture all looked very new, but Ski was surprised she hadn’t gotten herself a new house. He couldn’t imagine Gullveig staying in what, to her, would seem like such a small space. The living room and dining room weren’t even separated.
“Anyone check that walk-in closet yet?” Engstrom called from the other room.
“No,” Rundstöm replied just as his phone began to buzz, the sound and vibration irritating Ski’s ears. “But get on that so we can get out of . . .”
Rundstöm’s words faded away as he gazed down at his cell phone.
Ski watched him a moment before asking, “What’s wrong?”
Mouth slightly open, the Raven looked at him. “Hel’s Carrion.”
At the same time, both of them spun and yelled to Engstrom, “Stieg! Don’t go in that—”
Words of warning were cut off by a roar and the sight of Stieg Engstrom being shoved through several thick walls and back into the living room, with one of Hel’s Carrion attached to him.
Kaspersen rolled off the couch seconds before his Raven brother and the Carrion slammed into it, knocking it backward.
More Carrion came through the doorway; sharp, jagged blades made from the finest metal of Helheim held in meaty fists.
Rundstöm immediately grabbed the thick, reclaimed-wood dining table and held it in both hands before charging forward.
Ski moved to the floor-to-ceiling windows that covered two walls, and pulled back the thick, light-blocking curtains. The sunlight poured in, but it didn’t lessen the netherworld strength all Carrion had.
He pressed his hand against the glass. UV protection. “Bear! Break it!”
Bear, a former college linebacker during his Stanford days, lowered his shoulder and charged the window that led out onto a balcony. The first hit cracked it. He backed up and charged again, and the window shattered. Unfiltered sunlight poured in and the power of it allowed Engstrom to push away the Carrion who’d been on top of him. But where he’d been touched by the Carrion, his flesh appeared decayed.
Ski started to go over to help him, but he was tackled out onto the balcony. He gripped the Carrion by the neck and flipped him over. He rolled with him so he ended up on top and planted his foot against his chest, pinning him to the ground.
“Eriksen!” Ski looked up in time to snatch the Hel’s blade tossed to him by a Raven.
Protectors didn’t use weapons . . . but he knew of nothing else that could kill a Carrion.
With a twist of his wrist, he spun the blade around, grasped the grip with both hands, raised it high, and brought it down hard. He aimed right at the Carrion’s head, slamming the blade between the eyes.
Ski twisted the blade around to make sure he’d ended the beast, but when he stood, he heard Engstrom yell out, “Eriksen, move!”
Ski looked up in time to see the remainder of the Carrion charging toward him. Before he could dash out of the way, they plowed into him like semis, forcing him into and over the balcony gate. As he tumbled backward, about to unleash his wings, a piece of the gate slammed into his head and—
Vig watched the Protector’s head collide with that thick metal gate and knew he was out cold, free-falling from the twenty-third-story building. A fall even a Raven wouldn’t survive without his wings, much less a much weaker Protector.
Growling—he really hated the Protectors—Vig dove off the edge of the balcony and directly at Eriksen. He caught him in both arms and held him close, unleashing his wings and letting the wind lift him up until he could fly back to Brianna’s apartment.
Although now he was pretty sure that they were no longer dealing with Betty’s poor, beleaguered assistant but Gullveig herself who wore Brianna’s skin the way Vig’s ancestors used to wear bear fur during brutal Swedish winters.
He landed on the balcony and immediately retracted his wings before heading inside the apartment.
“You unleashed your wings during the day,” Siggy reminded him.
“I know. I think Odin will forgive that, considering the situation.”
“Even though it was a Protector you saved?”
“Hey!” Bear snapped, shoving Siggy by the shoulder. “Shut up.”
“What about the Carrion?” Stieg asked.
“They’re gone. Hit the ground and took off running. And we need to get out of here. That balcony gate dropped onto some dude’s Bugatti and, trust me, he’s going to be up here in a few minutes wanting someone to pay for it. And the mood I’m in, I’m liable to beat him to death. Let’s avoid that. Kera will just get mad.”
They were singing a hymn that Yardley faintly remembered from her Protestant upbringing. All of them facing the—not surprisingly—closed casket of her director.
No matter what she’d felt about the man as a filmmaker, she couldn’t deny that his family had loved him. Had she caused this? She hated to think she might have. She never would have said anything if she’d thought for a second that Brianna was actually Gullveig and would take her words so seriously.
Yardley was a Crow, not a monster.
Even when she was dealing with the worst scum on any plane of existence, she didn’t fool around with torture or stringing out deaths. She and her team went in, did the job, and got out. That was how most of the Crows operated.
As Yardley sang, she felt her sister-Crows’ eyes on her. She glanced over her shoulder. The signal to “get out” was more than clear.
With the hymnbook still in her hand, Yardley simply turned and walked out of the pew, never looking back. She handed off the book to one of the church workers near the doors and walked outside, her team surrounding her.
“What’s going on?” she asked as paparazzi begged her to turn toward them, to pose . . . at a funeral.
“It’s bad. The All-Clan meeting’s been moved up to tonight. Chloe wants you there with Tessa’s team. And Jace’s Protector got hurt.”
“Eriksen?”
“Yeah.”
“Fuck.” One of her team opened the limo door for her. She was just stepping in when someone grasped her arm.
She turned, ready to punch the crap out of some paparazzo that she’d have to pay off later when the complaint went to court, but it was Brianna.
The woman’s fingers were tight on Yardley’s bare arm, her gold rings digging into her skin.
“Where you going, hon?” Brianna asked, all fake Hollywood smiles for the ever-watching cameras.
“Don’t feel really well. Gotta get out of here. We’ll talk later, okay?”
One of Yardley’s team gently tried to separate the two, but Brianna caught hold of two fingers and snapped them back quickly, not only breaking them but leaving them awkwardly bent, so that if it had been anyone but a Crow, the screaming would have had the nearby police there in seconds.
Yardley’s sister-Crow, however, simply whimpered and took a step back so that she could attempt to bend her fingers into place while another sister quickly replaced her.
“Now listen to me, slave,” Gullveig said, “if you get in my way, even your precious Skuld won’t be able to save any of you. When I’m done, you’ll be begging me to end your lives. So take it as a warning to all Crows, Ravens, and the other worthless human Clans. Don’t fuck with me.” She took a step back and announced so the paparazzi could hear, “It was so good seeing you, sweetie. I’ll call you later to check in, okay? Now, you go home and get some rest. Love you!”
Then the bitch winked and walked back to the church in her fifteen-hundred-dollar heels.
The Crows got into the limo and slammed the door. Once they’d pulled out into traffic, Yardley’s sister released the cry of pain she’d been holding in.
“Hospital?” one sister asked.
“No,” Yardley immediately replied. “Let’s get her home.” She pulled her wounded sister close and held her tight while another sister grabbed those two brutalized fingers and readied herself to put them back into place as a bottle of forty-year-old Scotch was passed around—especially to the “patient.”
“Because,” Yardley said softly, desperately trying not to hear the sound of bones being snapped back and the subsequent screams of her sister-Crow, “this is really bad.”