The Dragon's Hunt

“I made this weird, didn’t I?” Leo tucked his hands back into his pockets. “Sorry. I hope you find someone to fill the position. Take care.” He was walking away again.

Anger flared inside her, irrational and childish but impossible to suppress. “So Theia was good enough to bang for a while, but I’m chopped liver.” Damn. Why did she have to say that out loud?

Leo’s shoulders stiffened as he reached the door, and he turned back with a miserable look of discomfort. “Look, I didn’t mean to—”

“No, it’s me. Sorry. I’m totally overreacting.” Rhea sighed, setting the tablet on the counter. “You just triggered some stupid childhood drama.” She tried to laugh it off. “Should we try this again? Rhea Carlisle.” She held out her hand.

Leo squared his shoulders and came back to the counter. “Nice to meet you, Rhea Carlisle.” He smiled as he shook her hand. “I’m Leo Ström.”

“Yeah, I know.” Rhea indicated the tablet with a nod of her head when Leo looked suspicious. “It’s on the application.”

“Right.” He laughed, still a bit awkward but more at ease.

“So what’s your availability?”

“My availability?”

“For the job. What hours would you be available to work? I’m open seven days.”

Leo’s eyes widened within the wire frames. “You’d actually hire me after this disaster?”

“It’s hardly your fault someone Xeroxed your ex-girlfriend.” Without telling you, apparently. Which was a new low for Theia.

“Whoa. Wait. She’s not my ex-girlfriend.”

“Oh, so you’re still seeing her.” Rhea laughed at the look of mortification on his face as he stuttered, trying to answer. “I’m just giving you crap. I need someone to work about twenty hours a week to help get the place in shape and book appointments, mostly mornings, occasionally closing if you prove trustworthy.” She winked at his expression. “Sound okay to you?”

“Uh, yeah.” Slightly bemused, he took her outstretched hand once more and shook on it. “Yeah, sounds great. Thanks.”

“You didn’t ask what it pays.”

“At this point, I’m thinking maybe I shouldn’t press my luck.” Leo grinned as he pushed up his glasses on the bridge of his nose. “Tomorrow morning, then?”

She was probably going to regret this. Honestly, she was already regretting it. Why hadn’t she just let him walk away? An entanglement of Theia’s was the last thing she needed.

Rhea put on a professional smile. “Morning is a relative term. Eleven o’clock sharp. We open at noon.”

* * *

The temperature, mild when she’d set out this morning, had dropped precipitously by the time she headed home, and the first snow of the season was falling. Not heavy enough to cover the ground yet, but if it kept up, it might have some staying power by morning. She wasn’t looking forward to snow driving after spending the last five years in Tempe. Especially now that she’d chosen to live in Cottonwood, half an hour from her shop. Not that choosing was precisely the word for it. The tiny apartment was all she could afford, especially without a roommate. And she’d only been able to swing the one-bedroom because the manager had offered to give her the studio price for the first three months.

For a while, she’d thought she might move up to Flagstaff with Theia, but that was out of the question now. Unbelievable that Theia wouldn’t even have mentioned having a twin to someone she was dating. Was she ashamed of everyone in the family now? It was bad enough that she’d officially changed her name, taking her middle name, “Dawn,” as her last name because she didn’t want to acknowledge the father who’d lied to them all their lives. Rhea wondered if Theia recognized the irony of her secret keeping.

The wipers swished across the windshield, set to intermittent, and as they slid back into place against the hood, something else whooshed past in their path. Something large and white and moving fast. Rhea slammed on the brakes—and, of course, began to hydroplane on the freshly wet road. The back end of the car whipped about and Rhea was in free-spin. Luckily, no one else was on the road. She managed to get the car under control and pull onto the opposite shoulder, although she was now facing the wrong way.

Shaken, she watched the wipers snap up and fall back a few times, trying to put together what could have whizzed past her window. A bird? Its wingspan, if it was one, must have been wider than her windshield. While she contemplated it, a loud horn split the air, making her heart pound.

That wasn’t a car horn. It was some kind of literal horn, with someone blowing into it, the notes of a herald or a mounted charge. Rhea braced herself, gripping the wheel as the ground rumbled with the impact of something heavy—or many somethings. It was like the vision in her living room, only this was right out in the open and there was no tattoo to read. But the riders were here.

This time, they’d taken on a more spectral appearance, the horses looking almost skeletal and the riders gaunt and wraithlike, dressed in contemporary clothing. The wet road was visible through their translucent forms as they thundered across the highway toward her. Rhea shrieked and ducked against the seat with her arms over her head as the riders began to leap across her MINI. She was sure they were going to trample the roof and crush her inside, but they somehow all managed to clear the top of the car—though some just barely, as hooves rattled and scraped across it.

As the last horse thundered onto the ground on the passenger side, the gaunt-faced horseman paused and turned, spectral gaze fixed on her as she sat up. Oddly, he was wearing a cowboy hat. He tipped it at her, sunken orbs in the hollowed spectral flesh flashing a vivid aquamarine, before turning and galloping away.

She’d finally started to exhale when something jumped onto the hood of the car and scrambled over it, making her heart leap into her throat. A wolflike hound trailed the hunt. Like the rider, the hound turned and fixed its wolfy eyes on her—pale blue and disturbingly sentient—before tearing off into the brush. They were all swallowed up—the vision and the thunder, the horns and baying alike—into the billowing, unearthly fog that traveled with them.

In their wake, the snow became a sudden, violent hail, with large marble-sized pellets hammering her roof and windows. She waited it out, making sure the worst of it was over before putting the car in Drive and turning around on the slick road to head home.

Delayed shock hit her once she was inside her apartment. Rhea collapsed onto the couch in the dark, shuddering and trying to catch her breath. She hadn’t had an asthma attack since she was a kid, but her chest was tight and her airway felt like it was closing.

She sat up and deliberately slowed her breathing, listening to her lungs make a peculiar wheezing rattle as she breathed in deeply, and finally got herself under control. Maybe it was time to get some expert advice, because this was getting too weird. Not from Theia, of course. And Ione would freak out and go into “mom” mode. It was hard for her oldest sister not to slip back into the role their parents’ deaths had forced her into—a teenager herself at the time—whenever anything threatened one of her siblings. But Phoebe, the middle child of the family, was used to dealing with weird.

Phoebe answered on the first ring. “Hey, kiddo. What’s up?”

“When you have shades stepping into you...do you ever see anything ghostly or is it just their presence you feel?”

“Well, hello to you, too. And, no, I don’t perceive the shades visually. Rafe sees them, of course. Dating someone who commands the dead has its perks.” Phoebe’s boyfriend happened to be the last scion of Quetzalcoatl. Because of course he was. “Why, did you need me to contact someone for you?”

“No.” Realizing she was scratching at her jeans over the healing tattoo, Rhea snatched her hand away. “No, it’s...never mind. I think I’m overtired.”

“Rhe. Come on, this is me. What’s going on?”

Her hand slid under the jeans, but Rhea curled her fingers and managed to stop herself. Damn this stupid tattoo.

“I thought I saw something a little...weird.”

“How weird?”

Rhea hesitated.

“Rhe? How weird?”

“Johnny Cash ‘Ghost Riders in the Sky’ weird. Only on Highway 89A and not in the sky.”

“Okay. That’s decidedly in the weird column.”

“And it’s not the first time I saw them. I had a vision while working on one of my tattoos. And then there was a fox in my living room, and she said I’d summoned her from the Wild Hunt.”

Phoebe was quiet for a moment. “Honey...are you still taking those antidepressants?”

Rhea let out an exasperated sigh. “I wasn’t hallucinating.”

“Sorry, but it’s a little hard to process. A talking fox?”

“And who has a boyfriend that turns into a feathered snake god, can shift into crow form and talks to coyotes? Jesus, Phoebes. Talking to a fox in my living room is hardly the weirdest thing anyone in this family does. Ione has sex with a goddamn dragon.”

“She doesn’t actually have sex with the dragon. Dev and his dragon demon are two separate entities who happen to share the same corporeal form.”

“Right. Okay. You’re absolutely right. I am being completely ridiculous with this fox-spirit thing. That’s way more normal. Good night.” Her thumb was poised to end the call.

“Rhea, wait.” Phoebe made a noise suggesting she was blowing her bangs out of her face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be a jerk. After everything that’s happened lately, I guess I owe you the benefit of the doubt.”

“Yeah, I guess you do.”

“What does Theia think?”

It was Rhea’s turn to blow at imaginary hair—or not so imaginary, as her spikes were getting way too long these days, and one in particular kept flopping over and hanging in her eyes. “I don’t know what Theia thinks.”

“You didn’t call her first?”

“I’m not really talking to Theia.”

“You’re what? Rhe, what’s going on with you?”

“Besides talking fox hallucinations? Just trying to deal with the fact that Theia kept Dad’s second family a secret for months.”

“I thought you two found the genealogical information together.”

“That part was all Theia. She knew we had three other sisters, and she knew one of them was living a few miles away from her. And she never said a word to me. Maybe if she had, Laurel wouldn’t have apprenticed herself to a psycho necromancer and tried to kill you.”

“Nobody’s to blame for that but Laurel herself—and that bag of dicks who took advantage of her vulnerability, Carter Hanson Hamilton.” Phoebe delivered the name of Ione’s ex with all due mocking disgust. Though “bag of dicks” was being kind, as far as Rhea was concerned. “You can’t let that come between you and Theia. Does she even know how you feel about it?”

Rhea sighed. “She knows. Anyway, I don’t want to talk about it. I just want to know if there’s any kind of precedent for seeing a ghostly hunting party. Can you check with Rafe to see if he knows anything about the Wild Hunt or if he’s seen anything out of the ordinary in the spirit world lately?”

“Of course.”

“And Phoebes? Don’t mention any of this to Ione or Theia.”

She lay awake later, unable to stop thinking about the haunting eyes of the straggling rider—and his straggling hound—as they’d paused to acknowledge her. The hound had lacked the skeletal appearance, but it certainly possessed the same unnerving gaze. Had all of the hunting party seen her? Or just those two? And why her?

According to Vixen, Rhea’s blood had summoned the Hunt. Of course, the name of the custom ink was Bloodbath. A bit macabre, maybe, but the color really was lovely. And unusual in its intensity. As was the damn itching. The healing skin was driving her mad again as she thought about it.

Rhea drew her leg from the covers. It could do with a little moisturizer. As she stroked the lotion over the Lilith mark, her fingers tingled with the precursor to a vision. Rhea pulled her hand away. She was so not in the mood for another vision.

But the pictomancy had a mind of its own.

This time it was an image of blood pooling onto a pristine field of snow. Something dark and hulking stood in the periphery, casting its shadow on the blood under a stark full moon. And then the darkness seemed to swallow the vision entirely.

There was no clear distinction between when the vision ended and when sleep and dreaming began.

Chapter 3

Leo climbed back into bed after dashing from the bathroom over the cold tile floor, folding his arms behind his head on the pillow as he stared up at the ceiling. The vague stuff of dreams fluttered at the edges of his consciousness, but he could never quite recall his. What he remembered, though, was Rhea Carlisle. He had the feeling she’d traipsed through his dreamscape. He’d never met anyone like her. An absurd assertion since he’d dated her twin, but indisputably true.

Her eyes, like Theia’s, were a true gray, made more striking by the dark limbal rings encircling the irises. But Rhea’s gaze seemed to lay him bare. Theia, even after they’d hung out several times, had remained somewhere on the surface with him, never allowing him deeper, her eyes warm but guarded. Rhea’s eyes challenged the one gazing upon them to see her, to be drawn into her. Within moments of meeting her, he’d felt the challenge: I dare you to know me. And he wanted to. Intensely.

But taking the job at Demoness Ink was a bad idea. Because being around someone who wanted to be known, whom he wanted to know, meant risking being known. And, frankly, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know himself. His nightly ritual kept whatever darkness was inside him from coming out, but it was a constant discipline. And the foolishness of romantic entanglements in the workplace aside, that discipline made dating difficult and awkward. Claiming he was busy whenever a potential partner suggested an evening date became quickly suspect, and he couldn’t blame Theia for having gotten weird about it.

And, anyway, what if she came into the shop to visit her sister? She’d never believe he’d just happened into the obscure tattoo parlor in Sedona where her twin worked by chance. She’d think he was crazy. Of course, he was a little crazy. And it didn’t matter what Theia thought of him. What mattered was Rhea. Which was why he was absolutely not going to show up to the job. It was out of the question.

* * *

He arrived at the little upstairs hole-in-the-wall that was Demoness Ink at five minutes to eleven and stood waiting in the lightly spitting snow until he realized, at five after, that Rhea was watching him calmly from behind the counter inside. The corner of her mouth turned up as he met her eyes, and Leo lowered his gaze, shaking his head with a laugh as he pushed open the door.

He brushed the soles of his boots against the sisal mat inside, hands in his coat pockets, before glancing up with a sheepish smile. “How long did you know I was out there?”

“Saw you come up the stairs.” Rhea’s heathery eyes were bright with amusement. “I thought I’d see how long it took you to try the door.”

“Employee intelligence test?”

Rhea laughed. “The opposite of what you’re thinking, though. I like mine a little bit stupid.” She meant her employees, of course, but for a split second he heard it as how she liked her men.

Before the heat in his cheeks at his foolishness could give him away, he took his hands from his pockets and blew on them, rubbing them together. “Well, you’re in luck, then, because I’m an idiot. I didn’t even think to put gloves on. Guess the joke’s on me.”

“The joke was already on you.” Rhea grinned at him, those starkly outlined irises merciless. “There’s a coatrack in the back if you want to hang your jacket up.”

“Thanks.” Leo headed past the counter to the back room, pulling off his hat as he went. At least he’d had the sense to wear it. Both the hat and coat were already significantly damp from standing in the snowfall. He found the rack and hung them on it, noting the sturdy, adjustable dentist’s-style tattoo chair. It might work in a pinch if he had to close some night and didn’t want to chance being late. Of course, he’d have to bring his own restraints, though he always carried them out of sheer necessity.

“Did you get lost back there?” Rhea’s perpetually amused voice carried from the front.

Leo tried to ruffle his hair back into place as he returned to the reception area. It was usually a losing battle, hat or no hat.

Rhea was eyeing his marks. He’d worn a T-shirt despite the cold, and the fading ink of his gauntlets and the band around his upper arm peeking out under the sleeve seemed more visible than usual under the fluorescent light.

“I thought you didn’t have any ink.”

He thought about saying he wasn’t sure it even was ink. How crazy would he sound if he said he didn’t remember getting tattooed?

“I didn’t say I didn’t have any ink. I said I didn’t have any experience with tattooing.” He glanced at his arm. “I got these done ages ago, so I’m not sure they even count anymore.”

Rhea came out from around the counter to look them over. “You must have been underage when you got them to have that much fading. Are they home jobs?”

“You could say that.” Let her think they were prison tattoos if that’s what she meant. Gang tattoos he’d gotten in juvie. Hell, maybe they were.

Rhea took his arm to inspect one of the marks more closely, and his skin rippled along his spine. “It’s nice work for a home job.” Her palm moved up his arm, warm and soft, and he flinched involuntarily. Rhea let go and took a step back. “Sorry. I should have asked first. I hate it when people touch my skin without asking just because it’s decorated.”

“No, it’s fine.” He couldn’t help wondering where she was decorated, since nothing was visible. “It’s just goose bumps. Feels like the temperature’s dropped a bit.”

Rhea tucked her hands into her back pockets, looking up at him. “Can I ask what they mean?” He hadn’t realized how stark the difference was in their heights until now, despite having dated her twin. But she seemed somehow smaller, more petite than he’d expected. He had a good six or seven inches on her.

She was still waiting for his answer.

Leo held out his right forearm. “This one is the allrune.” Two sets of three parallel lines crossed each other diagonally over three vertical lines. “It symbolizes the Web of Wyrd.”

Rhea’s eyes crinkled. “The web of what, now?”

“Wyrd.” He spelled it out to clarify. “One of the Norse fates. It’s supposed to symbolize the tapestry fate weaves.”

“Oh, Urd, sister of Skuld and Verdande.”

Leo smiled. “You know your Norns.”

“Actually, I know manga and anime.” Rhea laughed. “The series Oh My Goddess! The third Norn is called Belldandy in the series, which always made me giggle, so I do know a little bit about Norns, but only enough to know the names.”

Leo was intrigued. It was the first he’d heard of Norn manga. “I’ll have to check it out.” He held up his other arm, turning his wrist to reveal the knotted designs of the wraparound. “This one’s Mjölnir—”

“Thor’s hammer.”

Leo cocked his head. “You’re sure you don’t know Norse mythology?”

Rhea grinned. “Marvel Comics. And the other?”

One of Jörmungandr’s coils was visible under his sleeve at his right biceps. Leo pushed the sleeve up to reveal the coiling solid cuff. “The Midgard Serpent.” A look of apprehension and surprise flashed in Rhea’s eyes. “I know what you’re thinking. I have all these Nordic tattoos. I promise I’m not a Nazi skinhead. I’m just proud of my Swedish heritage. And apparently, as you’ve already noted, fairly stupid.” He smiled wryly. “I never realized most of these symbols had been co-opted by white nationalists. I tend to keep them covered most of the time.”

“I wasn’t thinking that.” Rhea’s look was guarded. She was so thinking that. “But now that you mention it, I can see where someone might make that mistake.” Uh-huh. “I have to say, though, that scruffy puppy-dog hair pretty much ruins the skinhead look for you. If that’s what you were going for, it’s another big fail.” Her laugh, letting him know she was cutting him slack, was infectious, and he found himself smiling at the warmth in her eyes. A smile he realized was probably only adding to the impression he wasn’t the brightest bulb in the pack.

But Rhea had switched into business mode. “Before I put you to work, we should probably talk pay.”

Leo rolled down his sleeve over Jörmungandr. “I was thinking maybe we could work out a deal. I’d be happy to exchange some work for touch-ups. Maybe some new ink, too.” Why had he added that? He didn’t want new ink. He didn’t even want the ink he had. But it did need touching up. In fact, it was what had brought him to the shop in the first place. Before he’d seen the Help-Wanted sign, the name of the place had caught his eye, and he’d figured it would be as good a place as any to get the work done. It wouldn’t be wise to put it off any longer. Like the nightly ritual, he knew the marks helped him keep his equilibrium, though he wasn’t sure why. It was a stupid idea, anyway. She’d probably think he was some kind of scam artist.

But Rhea cocked her head, considering. “The first gauntlet would probably take less than an hour, maybe two for the second, and the cuff might run a little longer. Let’s give it a conservative estimate of six hours for the three. Anything else you want, we’d have to negotiate based on the size and complexity and whether you want original artwork or have something of your own in mind. Normally, I charge one fifty an hour, with a one-hour minimum. So let’s say ten hours of work equals one hour of tattoo work. That would take you through the end of the year and my official opening. We can decide on any additional commitment after that.”

Leo’s eyes widened at the dollar figure. “Fifteen dollars an hour? That seems awfully generous.”

Rhea shrugged. “To be perfectly honest, there’s no way I could pay you in cash right now, so let’s just say I’d be giving you a good deal on the ink. Besides...” That devilish half grin she’d given him through the window earlier turned up the side of her mouth. “You don’t know what I’m going to have you doing.”

What she had him doing, it turned out, at least for that first day, was little more than counting inventory and learning her booking system. When she ran out of things for him to do, Rhea offered to start working on his touch-ups while he was still on the clock. He hadn’t expected her to start right away, but he certainly had no objection. It wasn’t like he had anywhere to be. As long as he was back at the motel before nightfall, everything would be fine.

* * *

As soon as Rhea’s fingers brushed his ink, there were whispers of visions. Her gift had initially manifested as shared visions with her clients, a kind of psychic reading, and she’d done a few for family and friends. But her skills had recently expanded to include the delivery of more immediate images that popped into her head without the client even being aware of it—and without her wanting to see them. Ever since she’d gotten images from some creep thinking about pushing her head into his lap, she’d been very careful not to indulge in the latter type.

She tried to keep her mind occupied by focusing on the physical anchors of the here and now—the sharp scent of the alcohol as she swabbed Leo’s skin, the soft snick of the razor as it traveled over the blond hairs on his arm, the warmth of Leo’s body heat as she leaned in close to examine the lines she’d be tracing. And the scent of his skin, like amber-resin oil and pumpkin spice and—Wow.

Rhea got up and busied herself readying supplies to get herself under control. What the heck was that about? He was kinda hot, sure, but not so-hot-that-smelling-him-makes-you-wet hot. Except, clearly, he was.

She worked to keep from blushing as she gave him a smile after setting up the machine and ink caps. “Okay, ready?”

Leo smiled back, and it nearly melted her. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”