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The thought of that adds another crack to my heart.
I head up Grant, toward the Chinatown gate. There are more people here, the stores open late, the air smelling of grilled meats—an appetizing scent to even someone like myself. I really must be hungry to actually crave food.
People chat in Cantonese and Mandarin, languages I understand. Their conversations are so mundane that I envy them. They talk about their families, about holidays, about the weather, about work, and for once I would give anything to enjoy a life free from my special kind of complication. Occasionally I pass by an elder who stares at me a little too long before they recoil and disappear into the stores. They know what I am. They might not be able to reconcile what I am exactly, but deep down, they know. I am predator and they are prey. They run and they hide.
Eventually I turn down a quieter street.
And that’s when I smell it.
An old smell.
Aniseed, sulfur, moss, pine.
I hear his footsteps, his breath, a block away.
It’s a block too close.
I whip around in time to see a shadow disappear behind a building. He’s depending on me not being able to move fast in public, but he doesn’t have magic. I do. I have worked for every ounce of it.
I throw up a cloaking ward, rendering anyone who might be watching from an apartment momentarily distracted, confused, so that no one will really know what they see, and then I move fast through the mist until I’m down that alley, the dark providing no shelter to my eyes.
Or his eyes either.
I’m on him in a second, throwing him against the wall, prepared for the blowback, for him to do the same to me. I’m two inches taller, my shoulders broader, my muscles bigger, but he has spent his life reveling in depravity while I have spent mine doing all I can to shutter it.
I throw him into the building so hard that it leaves cracks in the cement, something that would have crushed the bones of any human.
But he just falls to the ground, on his feet, like a cat.
And, like a cat, he stays in a crouch for a second, low to the ground, and I can tell he’s fighting every instinct he has to attack.
He gets up and grins at me instead.
“This how you treat family, Solon?” Kaleid asks, brushing the dirt off his leather jacket.
“Yes,” I answer simply. I won’t let my guard down for a second. “Last time I saw you—”
“Was in 1850. I know. I remember,” he says.
“You remember you tried to kill me?”
His grin spreads. “Of course. But only because you were trying to kill me. Come on, you can’t hold that against me. Self-defense holds up in a court of law.”
“There are no courts of law where we come from,” I remind him. “There is no law.”
“True,” he muses, sauntering toward me. “It’s kill or be killed. So far, neither of us have succumbed to the latter. That’s pretty impressive, don’t you think? The sons of Skarde are still alive and kicking.”
I glare at him. “There are many sons of Skarde.”
“Ah,” he says, running a hand through his hair. “But there are only two first ones.” He pauses, eyes going up in thought. “That’s an oxymoron, isn’t it? Two first sons. As if we were twins. Well, anyway. I guess you really were the first, if you wanted to go about it in a timeline of history type of way.”
“I don’t,” I say sharply. “You can take that title and keep it.”
His brows raise. “Oh. But haven’t you heard? I don’t want it either.” His jovial smile fades for a moment, the true cunning shine of his eyes coming through. “I sent Onni here. I have to say, I’m disappointed that you didn’t come as he asked.”
“Why the fuck would I have done that?”
“Because we want the same thing, brother.”
In a flash I’m at him, hands around his neck, then I’m pressing him against the opposite wall, my elbow crushing his jugular. “Don’t you fucking call me brother,” I seethe at him, seeing red. “I am not your brother.”
He blinks at me, nearly rolling his eyes. “Okay. Okay.” I drop him and he coughs, shaking out his shoulders. “Onni said you would be a pain in the ass.”
“Pardon me for not being very hospitable. It’s not every day that a parasite like you pretends to have a change of heart.”
“Parasite? Why, that’s a compliment, didn’t you know?”
I glare at him, every nerve taut, every muscle poised and ready to attack. “Why are you here, Kaleid? You’re a long way from the Baltic.”
“Well, a little birdie told me you were too afraid to come on my home turf. So I decided to come to yours.” He adds a smirk at the end that makes me want to break his teeth.
