Chapter Twenty-Three – Hunter

 

“Well done, Harrington,” I whispered. “You played us both.”

Here I was, file in hand, bullet on the bar top. Memories of feather tattoos swirling in my mind. Not just from just a few hours before, either. Something deeper.

But, seemingly all I could consider for longer than one moment was the look on Kris’s face. The stoic determination to stare down whatever threat this was all by her lonesome. And, God, the feel of her hand on my shoulder, the way the tips of her fingers hadn’t seemed to want to let go.

Not to mention the way I didn’t want her to let go.

I should have said something to her before she left. Should have stopped her somehow before she was out the door.

What could I tell her, though? That I’d been contracted by Harrington to get her involved with the PDB? That the prize he’d promised was the very same thing she’d left unexpectedly on my bar? That, despite my misgivings about his organization, I’d been angling her that way the whole time?

I shook my head as I glared down at the print on the page in front of me, the vision of a tattooed feather passing in front of my eyes. All the hitters last night had had them on their wrists. Not all perfectly alike, but close enough.

I reached for my cold coffee mug, and took a sip from its bitter contents. As I did, I thought back to Natalya, to my return to the home we’d shared on the outskirts of St. Petersburg. To the white feather scrawled on the basement wall in chalk when I’d returned to find her skeleton left amongst the rubble.

To the decades I’d spent trying to cram that thought down. The decades I’d spent trying to convince myself of the lack of complicity in my actions.

At the time, I hadn’t given it much thought. I’d been too busy mourning the love I’d thrown away. And, anyway, the perpetrators were long gone by the time I returned, their stupid ideas fallen apart in the midst of the Revolution as Russia tore itself to veritable shreds over human political ideologies far removed from the lofty ideals the people of the feather had espoused.

God, if only I’d taken her and left, like Kris was suggesting I now do with myself. Or, if I’d only stayed and fought. Maybe I could have protected her.

Or, maybe, just maybe, if I’d joined when they—

“No,” I said to my empty warehouse, the word flat and hollow as it echoed back to me from the unfeeling brick and metal walls. Emptiness. That was what my life was, now.

The White Feather had been stupid and misguided before, and now was likely no different. They’d approached me before I left, with their talk about a free land, a place where we could all be what we wanted to be. No masquerade, no deception. Where we could live side by side with humans, with no need to hide.

And I’d given them exactly what they deserved: a derisive laugh right in their earnest faces.

It was a stupid idea then, and it was likely just as stupid now, with too many voices clamoring to be heard as they sought to model their own movement after the Red Army’s. The crosswinds of so many decision-makers eventually tore their little political ship apart, sending it to the bottom of the sea of history like so many other failed “revolutions.”

I picked up the St. George bullet Kris had left for me, holding it like a test tube specimen between my thumb and index finger in front of my eyes as I focused on the single rune carved into its metallic flesh. The lines of the character were harsh, but precise, on the side of the bullet. A single, vertical etching, with six hashes crossing at equal distances over it. A veneer of silver was then brushed over the sigil, giving it a kind of depth and care you didn’t generally see in mass-produced bullets.

A simple enough rune for those who knew what it signified: a bespoke killing device. Handmade for the sole purpose of destruction. You could hardly even say that about silver, these days.

A bullet just like this had been meant for me, once. Only it had found its way into Natalya’s back when she’d been pushed, terrified, against the wall of our basement.

Because it hadn’t been the communists who’d come for her, or me.

I dropped the bullet in the middle of my folder, frowning as it landed with a dull thud.

What was it about history repeating itself?

I wondered for a moment if Harrington even knew I had a connection to this group, if he knew of my history. The file in front of me only spoke about the criminal part of my past. Not of any of my prior life or service.

Maybe, if he had, he would have changed the details of our arrangement, would have forced me to go along with Kris on whatever suicide mission he had planned. At the very least, he would have likely asked me about it during the three months we’d been imprisoned.

And it was going to be a suicide mission, too. We may have only fought humans at her house, but there was going to be more than that where we were going. Shifters, vampires, maybe even other dragons.

I could feel that fact in my bones like an old war injury when the first snows are falling.

But what good could I do?

“Kris is probably right,” I said, hunkering down on the bar top, chin resting on my hand as I looked at the bullet. Idly, I reached forward, gave it a spin. “I haven’t fought since the Great War. That’s a century out of practice.”

Not that I hadn’t fought, of course. I’d kept up on my training, somewhat. But nothing to the degree at which Kris and the rest of the shifters at FMS were trained. They were commandos, whereas I’d been nothing but a sapper beneath the enemy trenches.

Kris had been like a scythe mowing through a field of wheat on harvest day. While I’d done terrifying work, and survived more than my share of raids, I still knew when I was outclassed.

But this was the Feather, wasn’t it?

And, more importantly, it was Kris. It was Coal.

I sighed as I straightened up, running a hand down my face. My fingers and palms scuffed over the rapidly growing beard on my cheeks and chin. I crossed my arms, kept my eyes on the bullet in front of me, and gritted my teeth against the low, growling groan that threatened to escape my lips.

The Feather. They’d taken one woman from me. No matter what they had planned, or who was behind the organization this time around, I couldn’t let it happen again. Not this time.

My eyes settled on the file in front of me as I idly scratched at the new beard on my chin. Before I went to join Kris in the office, though, I needed to take care of something. I set the bullet aside and closed the file, slid it beneath my arm, and headed to my bedroom to get dressed.

While I wanted to use my dragon’s breath to end this miserable charade of blackmail that Harrington had hanging over me, a good old-fashioned barrel burn was certainly more innocuous. Especially out here in the warehouse district. No one would question a column of black smoke, not out here.