Gods and Mortals: Fourteen Free Urban Fantasy & Paranormal Novels Featuring Thor, Loki, Greek Gods, Native American Spirits, Vampires, Werewolves, & More (162 page)

Back and forth he walked. Back and forth.

This was the first time he’d questioned me. Only that morning had Gwen told him about my visit to Graham. Weirdly, she’d forgotten about it, and apparently no one else had known of it. I hadn’t mentioned it myself. I hadn’t thought it mattered.

“Why did you go see him?”

“I was hoping he’d explain what he’d done. It was bothering me.”

“Were you lovers?”

I bristled. What business was that of his? Rather than snap at him, I just didn’t answer.

He looked at me sharply, like some bird of prey seeing movement in the grass. Slowly, he came to a standstill.

“And what story did he spin for you, pray tell?”

“He said he’d been sentenced to death, and Lord Limu used that to blackmail him.”

Cordus cocked his head, continuing to stare at me.

Did he really think Graham would’ve told me about his escape plans? That wouldn’t make any sense.

“What else did he tell you?”

“He said he’d slept with Kara.”

“And what else?”

I stared at Cordus, trying to decide how to answer. Graham had said not to mention the mouse, but it was just a mouse. Why should it be a secret?

I thought of his face, pale and lovely, touched with sunlight and shadow. And suddenly I knew: at the very last, he’d said one true thing. A tiny gift, one without cost. But perhaps priceless.

“He didn’t say anything else.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing.”

Cordus stalked toward me. He loomed over me for a moment, then reached down for my hand and pulled me up. He stepped closer, then closer still, leaning into me. I couldn’t look away. I watched the tawny starbursts in his irises expand as his pupils dilated. My heart rate spiked. He traced a pattern on the back of my hand with his thumb. I jumped as his other hand slid around behind my neck and into my hair. He lowered his lips to my ear. On the way, they brushed against my cheek. A little sound came out of me before I could stop it.

“Miss Ryder,” he whispered, nuzzling my hair, “why are you lying to me?”

His breath was warm. Awareness of him flooded my body. I saw only him, heard only him, felt only him. Desire pooled in my belly, hot and insistent.

“Tell me what he said.”

His lips brushed over my cheekbone to my temple. He released my hand and drew his fingers lightly up my arm. His thumb brushed the side of my breast. I shuddered.

“Why would you lie for him?” he murmured, his lips moving slowly down to my jaw line. “He sent you to an isolate. He searched for Limu, intending to buy his freedom with your life.”

He kissed my cheek, ever so lightly, then moved toward my mouth. My legs would barely hold me up.

“He sent you to a land of monsters. Did he try to save you? No, not once during all those days.”

His breath was sweet. When he spoke, his lips moved against mine.

“And yet you lie for him?”

I stood there, eyes squeezed shut. If I spoke, if I moved, if I looked at him, it was all over. Second after second, we stood there, me shaking, my breath coming in gasps, him utterly composed.

Finally, he stepped back.

“Very well, Miss Ryder.”

I reached out and grabbed the back of the chair I’d been sitting in, almost upsetting it.

He moved away, unconcerned.

Warily, I watched him retreat behind his desk and begin to sort some papers.

“It may interest you to hear that Mr. Ryzik went through the carven strait. Two different trackers confirmed his use of it this morning. I had thought the strait wholly out of reach. It seems that little is impossible when it comes to that one.”

He tapped a sheaf of paper on his desk, then slid it into a folder.

“He is trapped in an isolate, and I shall very much enjoy hunting him down. You may go.”

I made my way to the door, feeling like I was about to fall down. As I turned the knob, his voice stopped me.

“Miss Ryder.”

Filled with dread, I turned.

He looked up, meeting my eyes.

“I hope you will remember what did not happen today.”

Mouth too dry to speak, I nodded.

He looked down.

I opened the door — too fast — and left. I made it around the corner before my legs went all bendy, and I had to stop and lean against the wall.

Oh shit
.
I’m so screwed
.

He hadn’t used his mind-control thing on me. He hadn’t needed to.

S
omeone knocked on my door
. A few seconds passed. I heard Gwen call my name.

I’d been lying on my bed feeling miserable for what seemed like hours. I glanced at the clock. Actually, it really had been hours.

I sat up and smoothed my hair back into its ponytail. “I’m here. Come on in.”

Gwen opened the door. Andy was right behind her, and I could see Theo over his shoulder.

“Hey …” She paused, and a look of concern came over her face. “Are you okay? You look pale.”

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

She stood there, clearly worried.

Andy stepped around her. “Right. Well, whatever’s wrong, we’ve got the cure. Get your Nikes. We’re going trail-running.”

“Trail running?”

“Yeah. You know. It’s running. On trails.”

“For fun?”

Andy and Theo both laughed. Even Gwen cracked a small smile.

“Yup,” Andy said. “Come on.”

I pointed out there was no reason to run anywhere, nowadays — there were plenty of perfectly good cars around.

That just made the guys laugh again, and Gwen started saying stuff like “No pain, no gain!” and “Go for the hurt!” so I dragged myself over to the closet to find my sweats.

By the time we’d stretched and walked around the house once to loosen up, it was the warmest part of the day. The sun was high and bright.

We picked up a jog.

The fresh air cleared my head a bit. I saw, with a little, primal spark of happiness, that the trees were leafing out. Here and there, dandelions were popping up.

All the way down the estate’s long, sloping lawn, the brothers argued over whose shoes were manlier — Andy’s, which were blue and green, or Theo’s, which were mostly black but had a pink stripe running through the sole. They got sort of annoyed with each other about it, even though they were kidding around. It was funny and rather charming.

We reached the tree line and headed south through the woods. Theo pointed out old concrete walls and tunnels and even the occasional building, long since abandoned and returning to the uses of nature — ruins of an old military base that had occupied the land before it became a park.

I sort of hated him for being able to talk while jogging. If what he was doing even counted as jogging. I think the three of them could’ve walked and still kept up with me.

“Why’d the base close?” Andy said.

Theo shrugged. “Dunno. Too close to the city? Or maybe it just got old.”

“Things change,” Gwen said, shooting me a glance. “There’s no stopping it.”

If I could’ve gotten enough air, I would’ve snorted.

Then again, cliché or not, what she’d said was true. Even if you’re a thousand years old — or a million — change does come. It shouldn’t have made me feel better, but oddly, it did. My situation might seem bad, but it could change.
Would
change.

That’s right
, my internal pessimist murmured.
And the change might be for the worse
.

I gritted my teeth. The Debbie Downer part of my mind really needed to take a short walk off a tall cliff. Yeah, sure, things might get worse. But they might also get better.

“This way,” Andy called, bearing right at a fork in the trail.

Gwen paused, jogging in place. “That way looks really muddy.”

Andy grinned at her over his shoulder. “Yup!”

She shook her head and jogged after him.

Theo and I followed along. The mud squished under my feet with every step. The air smelled like fresh dirt and earthworms and the night’s rainfall — like spring.

G
hosteater emerged
from the silence into the springtime forest.

He had left the émigré’s home some days before, angry at the man’s refusal to hand over Ryzik, the golden-haired native. The émigré had spoken for hours. Laws had been invoked, wrongs had been weighed, a compromise had been sought. None of that meant a thing to the beast. Either blood would be shed over the matter, or it would not.

In the end, Ghosteater had chosen not to defend his claim. He’d staked it on a whim, and fighting the émigré might be fatal. It just wasn’t worth it.

But anger, oh yes, there was anger. And disgust at these late-born creatures who knew no honesty. Their brains were too big for it. Revolting.

As the beast left the émigré’s land, the wind had curled around his ears, whispering, suggesting a path. Ghosteater panted, taking in the air, tasting what it offered. Incompletion, fragment. He knew that scent: the strange woman, Justine. Tears and sunlight. He knew that one as well: the pup, Beth. Heat and serpents: the émigré. Old blood. Salt water. Bronze and burning sand. The breath of one with an empty stomach. Other scents, too.

Intrigued, he turned aside and took one step on the wind’s path, then another. Soon he was on his way.

The path led a few hundred miles north. After several days of travel, he recognized his destination — a strait that had appeared recently in a small human structure some ways inland. He had noticed it during his last wanderings through the area, perhaps two hundred years ago. Made of heavy logs locked together, the structure had been built as a place of refuge during warfare. Perhaps the rage and hatred and blood of the place had drawn it closer to the other world. It was hard to say. Wild straits were strange, fickle.

Ghosteater stepped into the roofless dwelling. Unlike the carven strait, which contained its own capacity, this one did not tug at him. It would have to be forced open. His ability to do such things is what made him, like the man Cordus, a power and an émigré. Once, in the distant past, he had opened a strait without understanding what he did and had crossed through, finding himself in another world.

The other world. Unlike most émigrés, he did not consider that place his home. This continent of this world would always be his place, however changed it might be.

Still, the scents on the wind were interesting, its words tantalizing.

Nosing at the air, he could barely feel the strait’s presence. It was so young. He sensed the very edge of it and seized it, then adjusted his grip. When he had it firmly in his mind’s teeth, he touched his vast strength and worked the marrow of being, sending a filament of space spooling out through the silence between worlds, connecting the place he stood to somewhere on the other side.

Where it went, he didn’t know, but it smelled of trees and horses and dusty roads and fat, stupid deer. And of incompletion, tears. Sunlight, serpents. Vast sky.

He cocked his head and listened again to the voice of the wind. Then he stepped through.

A
ndy (Andrew) Duff
:
A Nolander who belongs to Cordus’s organization. An air-worker.

Baasha:
The
lingua franca
of the Second Emanation.

Ben Ryder:
Beth’s brother, older by ten years. He manages a hardware store in Dorf, Wisconsin. His wife is Justine Ryder, and his children are Tiffany, Jazzy, Lia, and Madisyn.

Beth (Elizabeth Joy) Ryder:
A member of Cordus’s organization. Until age twenty-three, a receptionist at a doctor’s office in Dorf, Wisconsin, and severely afflicted with panic disorder.

Bob of Dorf:
An ice man who lived in the graveyard attached to a Catholic church in Beth Ryder’s hometown.

Callie McCallister:
A member of Cordus’s organization who lives in Dorf, Wisconsin. Gifted with prescience.

capacity:
A measure of someone’s strength as an essence-worker.

carven strait:
A set of two stones (or other objects) invested with the ability to transport people from the location of one to the location of the other. Their making is thought by Cordus to be a lost art.

caste:
The level of essence-working ability attained by an individual (the term is thought inappropriate by some). Reaching the
first caste
means being sensitive to worked essence to the degree that one can “see through” a half-working and recognize the presence of a working; many workers never leave the first caste. One enters the
second caste
upon manifesting a gift. Achieving the
third caste
means becoming sensitive to natural (unworked) essence. A worker who has mastered a significant number of learned workings is said to have entered the
fourth caste
; few workers reach this level, which requires great time and study as well as natural strength.

Cordus: A
great power born in Constantinople around the year 330 or 340. Gifted in mind-working. Styles himself “Lord.” His full name is Gnaeus Cornelius Marci Filius Cordus.

court:
A formal reception space established by a power. Cordus holds court in a penthouse suite at the top of the Time Warner Center in Manhattan.

Dorf:
The small town in north-central Wisconsin where Beth Ryder grew up. A strait is located nearby, at an old mill at Bilford Crossing.

Doyle Schumaker:
An officer in the Dorf police force. His K-9 partner is a German shepherd named Abby.

dress code:
At formal events, Nolanders are expected to wear black. This clothing distinguishes them from Seconds, who usually wear more colorful outfits. Nolanders must wear small amounts of white if they possess significant power; the greater their power, the more white they are permitted to wear.

Dr. Nielsen, Ivar:
A family doctor. Beth Ryder’s employer in Dorf.

émigré:
An entity originating in the First Emanation but possessing enough power to open a strait and travel into the Second Emanation. All émigrés are powers, but not all powers are émigrés (many powers were born in the Second Emanation and don’t need to emigrate).

essence:
The fundamental constituents of the universe. Defies easy explanation. Essence-workers conceive of essence in different ways; they often rely on metaphors that make sense to them as individuals. The human sciences of cosmology and particle physics have, over the years, constructed their own approaches to the subject.

essence-worker:
An organism capable of manipulating the fundamental constituents of reality, or at least aware of others’ manipulation of those constituents. Often called “workers,” for short. Workers occur in all kingdoms of life.

Eye of the Heavens:
An ancient (perhaps mythical) entity of the Second Emanation. Cordus believes that Justine Ryder is Eye of the Heavens.

First:
A person, animal, or other entity native to the First Emanation.

the First Emanation:
Earth and its universe, as we know it; the normal world. Nolanders tend to call it the “F-Em.”

Ghosteater:
A wolf power born in North America about a million years ago. He is gifted with the abilities to speak with the wind and to pass into what he calls the silence. Over time, he has modified his body in several ways and has gained some ability to use language and think symbolically.

gift:
A working someone can do automatically, without study and practice. The emergence of a gift marks entry into the second caste. The weakest essence-workers do not have gifts. Some workers have more than one.

Graham Ryzik:
A high-ranked member of Cordus’s organization, in charge of the Upper Midwest region and stationed in Madison, Wisconsin. Gifted with luck. Assigned as Beth Ryder’s first trainer.

Grant Hillam:
A Nolander who belongs to Cordus’s organization. Often operates the elevator leading to Cordus’s penthouse court.

green men:
A Second Emanation species with birdlike features. Their trackers often become bounty hunters and assassins.

Gwen Hegstrom:
A Nolander who belongs to Cordus’s organization. A firearms expert. Capable of making small objects disappear.

half-working:
A working that does not attempt to maintain essence in an entirely altered state, instead allowing fluctuation back and forth between natural and worked states. Sometimes called a “halfing,” for short.

Hank (Henry) Jarrett:
A Nolander who belongs to Cordus’s organization.

ice people:
A species of giant, horned, apelike creatures native to the Second Emanation, famed for their water-working. The males are known as “ice men” and the females as “ice mothers.” They are a cold weather species. Their home stratum is Fur.

Innin:
A power controlling territory in the First Emanation, including the Florida peninsula, the Caribbean, and the northern coast of South America. Styles herself “Lady.”

isolate:
A stratum that has no straits and no ligatures to other strata. A stratum can be created as an isolate or can become one over time. Pronounced īsələt, not īsəlāt.

Jackie (Jacqueline) MacAuley:
A server at Pete’s Eats, in Dorf.

Janie (Jane) Breitenbach:
Beth Ryder’s best friend and co-worker, back in Dorf.

Jazzy (Jazmin) Ryder:
One of Beth Ryder’s nieces, second daughter of Ben and Justine Ryder.

Justine Jenson Ryder:
Beth Ryder’s sister-in-law, suspected by Cordus of being Eye of the Heavens in disguise. Her true shape appears to be a collection of floating blue balls. She is capable of workings that leave no trace in the fabric of reality. Whatever she actually is, she seems unaware that she is anything other than a normal human woman.

Kara Dolores Sanchez:
A member of Cordus’s organization. A powerful healer.

Koji Noguchi:
A member of Cordus’s staff.

learned working:
A working mastered through study and practice (rather than functioning automatically, like a gift). Some learned workings, such as unlocking doors, are common, but most workers never acquire many. A worker with quite a few learned workings under their belt is said to have entered the fourth caste.

Lia Ryder:
One of Beth Ryder’s nieces, third daughter of Ben and Justine Ryder.

ligature:
A doorway between two different strata of the Second Emanation. Unlike straits, ligatures do not need to be opened by a power — they remain open all the time.

Limu:
A great power holding territory in the First Emanation (the Pacific Ocean, its archipelagos, and its coastal rim). Gifted in fire- and mineral-working. Styles himself “Lord.” Claims to be the true husband of the person now calling herself Justine Ryder. Claims that she stole something from him. Sent a green man bounty hunter to retrieve her.

Madisyn Ryder:
Beth Ryder’s youngest niece, fourth daughter of Ben and Justine Ryder. A Nolander who saw through very early, a sign she has little power.

mini-dinosaurs, or minis:
Beth Ryder’s names for a small theropod species of dinosaur that attacked her in the Octoworld isolate.

mouse:
A friendly creature Beth Ryder found while meditating on Rib Mountain, in Wisconsin. Graham Ryzik advised her not to tell anyone about it.

Nolander
: A person born in the First Emanation who is able to work essence, at least to the degree of seeing through, but who is not strong enough to open a strait and emigrate to the Second Emanation. Organized by Seconds into quasi-police forces responsible for keeping the existence of the Second Emanation a secret.

Octoworld:
Beth Ryder’s label for a nameless isolate inhabited by sentient, water-working octopuses, as well as other creatures.

the old mill at Bilford Crossing
: An abandoned building near Dorf; location of a strait.

the one law:
The rule that the human population of the First Emanation must not be allowed to discover the existence of the Second Emanation. Agreed upon in 1956 by a gathering of the major powers, the one law prompted the development of Nolanders as quasi-police forces to help keep the secret under wraps.

Pete’s Eats:
A coffee shop in Dorf.

power:
An essence-worker with sufficient capacity to open a strait between the Emanations. The strongest of powers are known as “great powers.” Powers are born among all species of plants and animals, not just humans.

quirk:
A derogatory name for a gift that strikes people as silly, useless, or weird.

Rib Mountain:
A four-mile-long quartzite ridge southwest of Wausau, Wisconsin.

Second:
A person, animal, or other entity native to the Second Emanation.

the Second Emanation:
A multi-layered parallel world, connected to the familiar world by passageways called straits. The Second Emanation (Nolanders tend to call it the “S-Em”) was created over eons by makers of many different species. A particular maker’s creation is known as a “stratum.” Strata are connected to one another by ligatures.

seeing through:
The moment when a person who can work essence first becomes sensitive to workings and that person’s continued ability to perceive them. Seeing through half-workings means recognizing the reality beneath a disguise. Seeing through full workings means recognizing that a working is present. Seeing through marks entry into the first caste. The weakest workers — individuals such as Madisyn Ryder — will never do more than see through. Workers usually see through when about two-thirds of their total capacity has developed. Thus, the later a worker sees through, the more powerful they will be.

the silence:
A mysterious space Ghosteater can visit. He usually keeps his feet there.

stipend:
Cordus pays Beth Ryder the basic Nolander salary of $32,000 per annum, from which monthly room and board of $2,000 is deducted. As one of the more powerful members of his organization, she could receive much more, but she would have to ask for it, which she has chosen not to do.

strait:
A passageway connecting a place in one Emanation to a place in the other. The natural state of a strait is to be closed, and it takes a great deal of power to open one up. Most straits connect two fixed places. A few are only fixed on one end and are able to connect to several different locations on the other; the strait Limu opened to send the green man to Dorf was an example of this second kind.

stratum:
A discrete portion of the Second Emanation (the plural is “strata”). Strata have been created since the earliest life arose on Earth. Many strata are not conducive to human existence. Most preserve landmasses and geological features that no longer exist in the First Emanation. Countless species no longer extant on Earth persist in various strata of the S-Em.

Suzanne Dreisbach:
Beth Ryder’s next-door neighbor in Dorf, Wisconsin.

Tezzy (Hortensia) Tolosa:
A member of Cordus’s staff. Beth Ryder’s martial arts instructor.

Theo (Theodore) Duff:
A Nolander who belongs to Cordus’s organization. A water-worker.

Tiffany Ryder:
Beth Ryder’s oldest niece, daughter of Ben and Justine Ryder. A tracker.

tree-octopuses, tree-’puses, or ’puses:
Beth Ryder’s names for the dominant creatures of the western rainforest in the Octoworld isolate; powerful water-workers.

unworking:
The effort to undo or destroy someone else’s working.

Williams, John:
A member of Cordus’s organization. Gifted in barrier work.

working:
A complete alteration of reality through the manipulation of essence. Sometimes called a “full working.”

Zion:
A member of Cordus’s organization. A tracker. “Zion” is her entire name. She had it legally changed because it annoyed her to be referred to by her original full name (Zafirah Innocenté O’Sullivan-Namanworth), something Seconds tend to do.