Water Viper Read online

  Nate chuckled and set his beer on the bar. “Are you going to lay me out with your friends here if I take the stone?”

  Starfall stones scared away those with common sense and lured fools and the brave in equal measure. Which was Nate?

  I blamed my species and gender for my curiosity.

  “Be my guest.”

  I’d have the rock back soon enough.

  Reaching around me, he picked up the stone and held it in his palm. If the sparks it emitted bothered him, he showed no sign of it. “It’s amazing such a small stone can cause so many problems. It’s hard to believe this is a source of magic. If it bursts, what do you think it’ll do?”

  That was the real problem with Starfall stones; no one knew what the stones could do. The weakest fragments often did nothing at all. The stronger ones—the ones worthy of being named—could change the world. Cities rose and fell from their power. Some even believed they had the power to create gods.

  No one knew the name of the stone responsible for sinking Miami, but it had been a stronger stone.

  Nate watched me, waiting for an answer.

  Whatever Nate was, he wasn’t a cute little bunny; a rabbit would’ve dropped over snoring within a minute. Since my sedatives weren’t working fast enough, I replied with my default answer of, “Scare the piss out of everyone in a mile radius.”

  “Right you are. Maybe it’ll have a two-mile radius. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

  What sort of madman sounded excited at the prospect of a Starfall stone influencing such a large area? I eliminated prey species, and a thrill ran through me.

  Predator shifters lived for the hunt, and I was about to give Nate several excuses to nip at my heels. “That’d be something, but I’m not sure fun is the word I’d use.”

  “What generation are you?”

  “Third.”

  The fourth generation was just being born, and no one knew if their magic would swell or die away to nothing, leaving them closer to human. The first generation included those who had survived Starfall and the children born within the first few years following the meteor bursting over Canada and drowning the world in magic.

  The second generation, in some ways, had been stronger than the first. Mine had drawn the short straw, relying on bursts from the Starfall stones to develop useful abilities.

  In a way, I was the weakest of the weak, and I would remain so until I discovered my animal and earned the ability to shift. Choosing my gender at age ten had started the process. I hadn’t remained with the Blade Clan long enough to learn when—or how—to become a true shifter and find my animal.

  I’d have to figure it out on my own, one way or another.

  With my luck, I really would become a cow.

  “Never dreamed of rising in the ranks? One lucky burst and you could be a first gen.” Nate slipped the Starfall stone into his pocket.

  I’d been hired to take out a few first gen during my career. A single hit had paid for my life in Detroit for an entire year, where I had lived in a real house with a big yard. I’d learned the hard way I hated mowing, my thumb was blacker than sin and coal, and I’d grown bored of suburban life in a month.

  “What’s someone like you doing in a dive like this?”

  Nate frowned. “Someone like me?”

  I allowed myself a smirk of my own. “Nice clothes, pretty face, decent manners? Shouldn’t you be above sea level? Maybe in a flying castle in the clouds or at least a mansion somewhere?”

  Propping his chin in his hand, Nate watched me through half-lidded eyes, the first hints of a drug-induced glaze setting in. “Turns out the ivory tower only has pretty pampered princesses, so if I want intelligent conversation, I have to go get my feet wet.”

  I leaned back and made a show of looking him over, focusing on his boots. “Hope you left your good shoes at home.”

  With a murmur and a sigh, Nate slumped against the bar. In sleep, his expression relaxed, and a small smile curved his lips. Rubbing my hands together, I took my time looking him over before I dug into his pants for the Starfall stone.

  The rock warmed my hand, but the jolts of electricity I expected didn’t come. I slipped it into my front pocket. As one of the few drifters using Oyster Bay as a flop, I was charged a pittance for a lock box, and with a merry whistle, I dug out my keys to fetch my bag.

  Setting the leather satchel on the bar, I rummaged through it until I found my tattoo box. When I killed someone, I took time and care with the job, leaving little evidence behind, except for my mark. When I was hired through official channels, I left my mark on the center of my victim’s forehead as a warning to their associates.

  When I wasn’t, or I really had a grudge against them, my mark went over their heart.

  Unless Nate gave me a reason to, I wouldn’t kill him. However, I wanted to find out just how good of a sport he could be. It wasn’t often I got to play with a shifter male, especially not a good looking one.

  Too many embraced their animals and smothered their human side, and I wanted a man as a partner, not just some beast.

  I tattooed a coiled water viper below his navel. Since I liked him, I used my golden ink, which blended well with his rich tan. When I finished leaving my mark on him, I dipped my finger into my jar of healing cream and smeared it over the fresh tattoo, ensuring its permanency. I dosed him with the sedative’s antidote and erased the scratch marks of my needles with my ointment.

  I ran my fingers along the line of his jaw, taking note of his features so I’d hopefully remember his face in case he rose to my challenge and hunted for me. “Sleep well. Sorry, but I gotta run. Thanks for the beer.”

  Dropping a twenty on the bar for Petey, I headed out of Oyster Bay and into the spring storm sweeping in from the sea.

  Chapter Two

  What had possessed me to steal a Starfall stone out of Nate’s pants?

  The stone weighed a lot for its size, and with every step I took, my awareness of its presence in my pocket grew. Mercenaries always cracked at least once during their careers. I could blame boredom or stress, but I’d gone into creepy stalker territory by leaving my assassin’s mark on a man.

  In gold ink.

  I hadn’t just cracked; I’d dived straight into the deep end head first. If I wanted to turn him into my top enemy and inspire him to hunt me down, leaving the tattoo had been a good start. If anyone found out it was there, every assassin would want to know why I was interested in him and why the man wasn’t already dead.

  A neon sign declaring him my property would have been less obvious.

  In the grand scheme of my life, taking the glowing hunk of magical rock likely to blow up in my face was merely a misdemeanor. Maybe I could use the stone to distract Nate if he did hunt me down. If he had the choice between acquiring the Starfall stone or chasing after an assassin who had already humiliated him, the rock was worth more, wasn’t it?

  Then again, I had drugged a shifter male. For some reason, they got offended when I did that. The last time I’d done it, my victim had been an overly amorous bear. I viewed it as helping him reach the blissful state of hibernation a month early.

  When a bear roared, it could be heard from miles away, and it had taken me until the start of winter to ditch my unwanted suitor. I had escaped him, and I made a point to avoid the mountains of West Virginia.

  At least rabbits and other prey species took their unexpected naps with a lot more grace. I wrinkled my nose, scaled the ladder to Oyster Bay’s roof, and headed for one of the sagging rope bridges swaying over the white-capped sea. I paused long enough to watch the weather, noting the lack of howling winds and the tattered clouds in the distance marking the storm’s end.

  My impulse prey would wake long before the bar flooded if a storm surge did wash over the dying city. Satisfied I hadn’t condemned Nate to death, I navigated the maze of bridges lashed between crumbling skyscrapers. It had taken me two weeks to get used to the slick boards under foot and learn to identify the signs of
rot to avoid falling through the disintegrating wood.

  I wouldn’t miss the place, not one bit. With fifteen hundred dollars and a Starfall stone burning a hole in my pocket, I’d be able to pick any city in the east, take over a flop, and have enough to live on until I found work.

  If the stone didn’t burst while I had it, I’d be a rich woman in short order. Active stones brought in a lot of cash on the black market. Before I’d sell it, however, I’d do the research necessary to learn if it had a name.

  Even if it did burst, as long as it didn’t shatter, I’d make some money off someone willing to gamble on it reactivating.

  If by some miracle I had gotten my hands on a named stone, I’d have to think long and hard about what it could do and who I’d sell it to—or if I’d take it to the ocean and toss it in, hoping no one ever found it again.

  Maybe a deep well would be a better choice. Any fool could brave the ocean for a stone, but descending into a well took serious work.

  If the stone had a name, if it wasn’t so wretched no one should have it, selling it would open so many doors for me. I would first buy a new weapon. My short sword had served me well over the years, although it lacked magic and carried the weight of unwanted memories.

  The Blade Clan forged the best steel, and no other mundane sword could match those crafted by the clan. If I had become a man instead of a woman, my sword would have become my first blade, my symbol of masculinity, and my right to fight alongside my fellow men.

  If I had fought well, fought bravely, and earned honor, the clan would have used its Starfall stone, Steel Heart, to bless my blade. I’d never seen the stone, but there was no mistaking a blade touched by its power.

  Some glowed. Some burned with white flame. Others crackled with frost or lightning. A rare few could cut through anything without breaking. No matter what power the Starfall stone granted, the blades it touched were forever changed and marked with magic.

  Before I had become a woman, I had dreamed of earning my true sword along with my spirit animal and the gift of shifting. I had always believed I would become a man, and I still didn’t understand what had gone wrong.

  I understood why; I had worshipped the ground the clan heroes walked on so much I would have done anything to fight at their side. My obsession had consumed me, and somehow, it had turned me into a woman.

  Clenching my teeth, I crossed the swaying bridges of Miami towards higher ground, where the sea lost the battle with the land.

  Instead of fighting for the clan’s honor, I merely survived. I killed those who needed killing, taking money for their spilled blood. I left my mark on the dead. I carved my way through the world, leaving bodies in my wake. Some I let live, like the three men who had tried to claim the stone for themselves, and like Nate.

  Lightning flashed across the sky, and I grimaced at the cracking roar of thunder. No one else dared to traverse the bridges in a storm. The lightning rods rising from the rooftops helped keep strikes off the bridges, but they weren’t foolproof.

  The first thing I had learned about the city was how people died by the dozens every year braving Miami’s weather. If the storms didn’t kill them, sharks and other predators did.

  I’d been in the city a month, and I hadn’t killed anyone before moving on.

  Miracles could happen after all.

  It took me four hours to reach Miami’s city limits, and I cursed myself, the driving rain, the cracking thunder, and the blinding bursts of lightning every single step of the way. When the wind gusted, the bridges bucked beneath me with the indomitable pride of an unbroken stallion.

  The water crested beneath the wooden planks, spraying me with stinging mist, and when I finally reached real land and the surf-soaked sand shifted beneath my boots, the gale screamed its fury at my escape.

  I flipped the sky my middle finger.

  The sky rumbled impotent curses back at me.

  When Miami had fallen, much of Florida had gone with it, turning the state into a scattering of islets connected by sandbars and bridges. Aquatic shifter clans ruled the habitable spaces, including much of the Everglades, which thrived when everything else had fallen into the sea.

  Where humans and their descendants didn’t dare to tread, wild horses did. I’d learned more about the equines from Petey than I had anything else. The lucky saw one, the blessed touched one, and only the insane risked their lives for a ride.

  Every few years, the Blade Clan headed west to hunt mustangs, and the bravest returned with a horse to tame. They bred them, too, but a man was measured by his skill with the sword, the horse he rode, and the woman he claimed for his bride.

  I added ‘a good horse’ to the list of things I would buy if the Starfall stone proved valuable.

  I marched with my sword unsheathed, watching the waving grasses for movement counter to the storm’s winds. When humans weren’t hunting, animals were, and I had no intention of falling prey to either.

  Nothing bothered me while I splashed from islet to islet, following the jagged coast north towards the ruins of Fort Lauderdale.

  When I reached the city’s edge two days later, hungry, cranky, and itching for a fight, a crimson, crystalline statue greeted me. In life, she had been an older woman, smiling when the Starfall burst had washed over the city. Her feet marked the start of the ruby scourge, and it stretched out as far as I could see.

  I slipped my hand into my pocket and pulled out the Starfall stone. It still glowed and pulsed, warming my storm-chilled skin. Clenching my teeth, I returned it to my pocket and prayed I hadn’t made a huge mistake taking it.

  When I had first passed through Fort Lauderdale, I had counted the dead while I traversed the streets, cringing when the waves washed around my feet and the sea turned red. People hadn’t been the only things to turn to crystal; an undisturbed image of the past stretched out before me. Cars littered the street, their occupants frozen within. Birds clung to branches, and those unlucky enough to have been caught in flight still hung in the air.

  Somewhere deep within the city, the crystal entombed President Wilson, the second US President to fall prey to a Starfall stone. His replacement, elected six months after Fort Lauderdale’s fall in 1992, still governed. Before Starfall, terms had been limited to eight years, but the American people had voted to change the rules, mandating every literate adult eighteen or older was required to vote, and the President of the United States could serve until they were voted out or impeached.

  Ninety percent of the voters had made their voices heard, and mine had been among them: for as long as President Stephanie Miller remained willing to govern, the people would follow her lead.

  If the rest of life could be so clear-cut, I suspected a lot of things would have been different. I lifted my chin and delved into the crystal city’s depths. My footsteps chimed, and the columns of red stones, which had once been buildings, gleamed in the fading sunlight.

  Next time, if there was a next time, I would plan better. There was no way I’d be able to cross the city without resting. I hated sleeping in a city occupied by the dead. When night fell, the spirits whispered, and when the dead spoke, the wise listened.

  Unfortunately, the dead never had anything nice to say.

  “Well, fuck.” My voice echoed, and I took shelter under an awning to wait for dawn.

  Even the dead feared a Starfall stone ready to burst. Not a single ghost haunting Fort Lauderdale disturbed my sleep or whispered threats in my ear.

  The next morning, I counted my blessings, grimaced at the stiffness deep in my bones, and forced myself to start walking. Within an hour, Fort Lauderdale became a memory, one I hoped I’d never revisit.

  By the end of the day, I reached Pompano Beach. It was the southernmost city where I could hire a coach to Jacksonville, one of the few parts of Florida still attached to the mainland United States.

  From there, I could take a train just about anywhere, although I didn’t have too far to travel. I’d lose two hundred dollars re
aching Charlotte, North Carolina, but it was the best place for me to go. Between the mercenary guilds, the mystic guilds, and the freelancers, there’d be work. I refused to pay homage to any one guild, setting me apart from most assassins.

  The harder it was to find me, the harder it was for someone to track me down and kill me.

  Then again, maybe I was just bored of living. Not only had I put my mark on Nate, I had told him the name I never should have given anyone. He knew my face.

  If he was a shifter male like I thought, he likely knew my scent, too. The chance existed he, like me, hadn’t discovered his beast, but I thought it unlikely.

  Only those of the Blade Clan and the rival weapon clans sharing the Adirondacks to the northern reaches of the Blue Ridge grew into adulthood without learning their second nature. While I wanted to live long enough to discover what I was and who I’d become, I tired of my shamed exile.

  I should have been a man, but I was a woman instead. No amount of training would give me the height or strength of a man. I made up for my weakness in skill and precision, but every time I crossed swords with a man, I knew.

  When it came to brute force, I’d never compare. I’d always remain lean compared to men, especially shifter males. Until I discovered my beast, I’d be lean and weak compared to shifter females, too.

  It set those born of the Blade Clan and other weapon clans apart from the other shifters.

  We were, unlike everyone else, truly human until we became adults. We lacked power; we found it later in life, long after we reached maturity. Our bodies were weapons, and our swords were an extension of our very selves.

  Except for me.

  My guilt and shame chased me all the way to Charlotte. A cold mist hung in the air, worked its way through my clothes, and clung to my skin. Few departed the train with me despite Charlotte’s rank as a metropolis. The train station, located in the heart of the city, rested on a junction point, a rare place where magic and electricity blended without interfering with one another.