Gods and Mortals: Fourteen Free Urban Fantasy & Paranormal Novels Featuring Thor, Loki, Greek Gods, Native American Spirits, Vampires, Werewolves, & More (151 page)

I nodded, appreciating the effort. Zion seemed like a tough customer. She probably didn’t put on the comforting hat very often.

I noticed Kara didn’t say anything, though she did give me a little smile and a shrug when I caught her eye. She looked pale, actually.

“You okay, Kara? Are you back to normal now?”

“Not really. I mean, I’m okay to be up and around, but I need another day or two to be a hundred percent.”

The tailor finished working on the dress and went over to the huge rolling wardrobe he’d brought with him. He pulled out a coat made of some short, glossy black fur.

“Let’s get this show on the road,” Kara said, squaring her shoulders. The tailor helped me into the coat, and Zion, Kara, and I headed down the hall. After a few steps, I realized Kara was shaking. Either she was less well than she’d said, or she was terrified.

I
had imagined
Cordus “held court” in some ballroom in the huge house we’d been staying in, but the coats suggested otherwise. Kara and Zion walked me down three floors, into an underground basement, through a tunnel, and then up into a massive garage. We found the Porsche and headed out. Several other cars had left just before us. I could see their tail lights winding downhill as we drove away from the house.

The drive was pleasant — mostly woodlands, with an occasional development or shopping center on the right.

As we drove, Kara gave me some pointers. Some seemed like common sense: don’t stare at Seconds; don’t touch them; be polite and deferential. Some were less obvious: don’t ask any questions, not even in making small talk; don’t withdraw from a conversation without leave; never show surprise; don’t eat or drink unless they do; don’t turn your back on them unless you’re at least ten feet away; don’t agree to do anything for them.

“What if they ask me to point them to the bathroom or to get them a drink?” I said.

She shook her head. “Definitely don’t get them anything to eat or drink. And they can find the bathroom on their own. Just say you don’t know.”

Zion added, “Say something like, ‘I’ll just ask Lord Cordus which of his wines he thinks you would like best.’ That tells them you’re onto their game. Unless they’re looking for an excuse to get into it with him, they’ll back down.”

I’d never felt more like a rube. I’d need luck to get through the evening in one piece.

The traffic didn’t seem heavy, though I knew we must be close to New York City. After about fifteen minutes, we crossed what Kara said was the G.W. Bridge, then took a highway that put the river out our right window. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see much — just the twinkle of lights on the far side.

We went around a traffic circle and dove into the city proper. I’d never seen anything like it. The buildings pressed in on us from all sides, and there were cars everywhere, especially taxis. They seemed to have no sense of a safe distance from other vehicles. I was constantly sure one was going to clip us.

Although it was night, the streets were brightly illuminated. I found myself wondering how anyone ever got to sleep in such a place. Blackout curtains on every window?

Perhaps strangest to my eye was the lack of greenery. Small trees dotted the sidewalks, or lined the center median, but mostly it was stone atop stone, punctuated with metal. It all looked hard and alien.

Our destination turned out to be an imposing building, massive and boxy on the bottom, but topped with slender matching towers. It curved partway round a big traffic circle. The many lighted rectangular windows gave it a stacked look that reminded me of Legos.

We turned onto a street that ran along one side of the building. I’d thought from the front that it contained commercial space, but the entrance we pulled up to looked residential.

A valet, a buff young Asian guy, was waiting to take the car. He gave me an appreciative look as I stepped out. I felt myself blush.

“Hey, Koji,” Zion said as she got out of the car. “Not going to scratch her up, are you?”

Koji eyeballed the Porsche. “Fugly car like that, you should thank me if I did.”

“Huh. I hear envy.”

“Not even. That thing looks like a station wagon.”

Zion snorted. “You get your GT-R yet?”

“Nah. Almost ready to take the plunge, though. Any day now.”

“Perfect car for you, Koji: a ricer for a —”

“Don’t say it, woman. Your hotness will not save you.”

She grinned.

“Hey,” she said, sobering up, “anything we should know?”

Koji glanced around. “Lady Innin’s up there.”

“Seriously?” Kara asked.

“Yep. Keep your heads down.”

Zion grimaced. “Thanks.”

At that point, Koji looked at me over Zion’s shoulder, so she turned and introduced me. I put my hand out to shake and blushed all over again when he swept it up dramatically and kissed it, then winked at me.

A doorman let us in. Zion and Kara seemed to know him, too, but didn’t stop to chat. He took us into an elevator, using a special key to send it to a top floor.

After he stepped out, the doors closed and the elevator began to rise sluggishly. To pass the time, I asked if Koji and the doorman were Nolanders.

“Yeah,” Zion said. “Couldn’t you feel it when you touched Koji’s hand?”

I shook my head.

“That’s … strange,” Zion said, looking appalled.

“She also can’t see workings,” Kara said. “Halfings, yeah, but not the full ones. Weird, huh?”

“Yeah,” Zion said. “I’ve never heard of that happening.”

She looked me over, eyebrows knit. I felt like someone with a rare disease surrounded by astonished medical students.

“Graham didn’t even try to do something about it — just tested her for gifts. As if she’d get a gift before seeing workings. Can you believe that?”

“I don’t think he knew —”

Zion cut me off. “Sure I can believe it. He didn’t want her looking into that strait you had sitting open up there, right? You can’t see workings, you can’t see a strait — simple as that.”

Kara looked stunned. Then her surprise turned to anger.

“That bastard! He really was trying to get us killed.”

“What does seeing workings have to do with knowing someone’s a Nolander?” I said, feeling uncomfortable and hoping to get them off the subject of Graham.

Still steaming, Kara explained that normally you can get a general feel for someone else’s capacity to work essence by touching them. “It’s like your power senses their power. You can definitely tell if they’re able to work essence or not. Often you can tell how strong they are, especially if they’re weaker than you. That’s why you won’t see Seconds touching each other very often — not skin to skin.”

“I guess that’s another way my development’s screwed up.”

“I’m sure it’ll be okay,” Kara said.

“Do you think I’ll get a replacement trainer?”

Zion cleared her throat. “I heard Lord Cordus wants to teach you himself.”

Kara shot me a glance that was pure horror, then quickly looked away.

“As for telling who’s a Nolander,” Zion said, filling the uncomfortable silence, “just look for black clothes. Seconds generally don’t like wearing black, so that’s what we wear at events where we’ll be mixing with them. Those of us with significant strength wear a little silver or white, like my barrette or the trim on Kara’s dress, but that’s it.”

Koji and the doorman had both been wearing all black. I looked down at the beautiful beaded top of my dress. Not only were the straps whitish, but the top four or so inches of the dress were too.

“Yeah,” Kara said, following my gaze. “That’s a lot of white.”

“Am I going to get in trouble?” I would’ve thought Cordus’s staff knew the rules.

Zion shook her head. “If that’s what Lord Cordus’s staff put on you, that’s what he wants you to wear.” She paused. “It just means you’re very strong — the more white, the more power. He’s decided to advertise your potential.”

“I wonder how much white he’d put on Callie. If he ever got her down here, I mean,” Kara mused, looking at my dress.

Before I could think of anything else to say, the doors hissed open. The elevator, along with several others, emptied onto a marble hallway. There were attendants waiting at one end to take our coats. They both looked like tough customers, so maybe they were guards as well as coat-checkers.

After handing off my fur, I followed Zion through a short hallway into a large room, with Kara trailing behind.

I’d been vaguely imagining some medieval scene — everyone standing around watching Cordus sitting on a dais at the end of some ornately decorated hall. Maybe he’d even be on a throne, like a king.

What I’d walked into looked more like a hoity-toity cocktail party. We were in what seemed to be a very large living room. It stretched dozens of feet to both the right and left. The floor was carpeted, and people were standing around in clusters, chatting and drinking. Some were seated at various furniture groupings. Some stood alone or with just one other, near the walls. A few were standing at the floor-to-ceiling windows, taking in the cityscape. I couldn’t see much, with all the people in the way, but it seemed we were up pretty high.

The good news was that no one paid us the slightest attention when we came in. The bad news was that the room was full of Seconds. Most had a human shape, but some were bizarre, and a few were terrifying.

I saw a green man standing off to the right. The fact that it was holding a glass of wine and chatting cordially with someone made it all the more disturbing. Something in the room’s lighting made its skin fluoresce green all over, as though it were made of foil. Or maybe it could control the effect and was showing off.

I saw a snowman that reminded me, with a sharp twinge, of Bob. The snowman was speaking to something that looked like a miniature elephant.

Across the room, a towering, pale pink, batlike creature hulked near the windows. I could see its grossly long folded arms, pouchy with membranous wings, jutting up above the heads of those standing nearby. I was staring at it, so of course it looked my way. Incongruously, it had the face of a jowly old man, complete with rheumy eyes and a thin, gray comb-over. I quickly looked away.

“Big crowd,” Kara said softly at my shoulder.

I nodded. Zion moved away, into the press, but I stood there frozen.

Even the human-shaped Seconds were clearly
other
to my eyes. As with Cordus’s impossible beauty, there was something about each of them that was off. The more I looked at them, the more disturbing they became. They were the non-human stuffed into almost-human packaging. It was eerie, wrong. The idea of walking among them was frightening.

Kara moved forward and took my arm. Again, I could feel her shaking.

“Come on, let’s get a drink,” she said.

We threaded our way through the crowd to a small bar set up in one corner. Kara introduced me to the barkeep, a pleasant-looking middle-aged white guy dressed all in black. His name was Hank. He too gave me an admiring once-over. My feeling of being on display intensified.

Glasses of white wine in hand, we moved to the windows. The view was stunning. Directly ahead, we looked down on several smaller skyscrapers, then a mixture of tall buildings and smaller ones. Looking slightly left, far taller buildings marched away for blocks and blocks, including some that looked familiar, even to a girl from small-town Wisconsin.

“That’s the Empire State Building,” Kara said helpfully.

I could see the top of it clearly, bathed in white light. We stood for a few minutes in silence. Kara kept bringing her glass to her lips, then lowering it. I imagined she really wanted to down it, but kept reminding herself it wouldn’t be a good idea. That was certainly what I was thinking.

The reflection of movement behind us caught my eye. I looked back to see the snowman I’d noticed earlier looming over us.

“You are Elizabeth Ryder, are you not?” it rumbled.

“Yes,” I answered, bowing my head in a way I hoped looked respectful. I felt Kara draw closer behind me.

The snowman observed me quietly for several seconds. It made me uncomfortable, but at least there was nothing overtly sexual in its perusal.

“I have heard that you brought death to one of my people,” it said at last.

I looked up at its face. Its expression was not as neutral as its voice had been. Despite the inhumanity of its features, I could see sadness there.

I teared up. I couldn’t help it.

“I guess I did,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“Will you offer no reason?”

I explained about the photograph I’d taken of Bob’s foot and how it’d been passed around in Pete’s Eats.

The creature sighed. “A more absurd cause of death can hardly be imagined. Who ordered the execution, and who carried it out?”

“With all due respect, Lady Ambassador,” Kara said from behind me, “that’s something you should probably take up with Lord Cordus.”

The snowman’s eyes flicked briefly over my shoulder at her, then focused on me again.

“I certainly shall. But for now I am asking Miss Ryder.”

I took a deep breath. “All I’ve heard is hearsay. I won’t pass that along as though it were fact. I’m sorry.”

Kara stopped breathing. I felt her take hold of my elbow.

“Perhaps this is an issue we should discuss privately, Lady Ambassador,” a super-sexy voice said from behind the snowman.

The creature stepped aside with surprising grace, revealing Cordus.

“Gnaeus Cornelius Marci Filius Cordus,” it said, and bowed. “I will look forward to discussing the fate of my kinsman, at your convenience.”

It nodded at Kara and me, inclined its head to Cordus, and moved away.

Cordus turned toward us.

“Elizabeth Joy Ryder, you look quite lovely,” he said, looking me slowly up and down.

You’d think I’d have been used to it by that point, but I blushed hotly. His eyes dwelt on my face and neck, perhaps enjoying my evident embarrassment. Usually I looked down when I blushed, since it made me so self-conscious, but I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I just stared back.

Finally, his gaze shifted over my shoulder.