HELENA d’Amry inhaled the evening air. It smelled of the woods and dampness. She leaned against a large cypress, her cloak mimicking the color of the cypress bark so precisely she was practically invisible. In front of her, the road stretched into the distance, sectioned off by a weak shimmer. The boundary.
Helena closed her eyes and felt the reassuring current of magic. It was weak here, in the Edge, much weaker than in the Dukedom of Louisiana, but beyond the boundary, it didn’t exist at all. Beyond the boundary, she would be dead. She could see the different dimension, but she could never enter it. The Edge was her limit. Very few of the Hand’s agents could cross into the Broken. The Hounds were differently augmented, and yet barely a third of her crew had been able to cross the boundary.
This place, it was too damp, too rainy, too . . . verdant. Her Louisiana estate was verdant as well, but there the nature served her will, shaped by the tools of her gardener. Here it ran wild, like a bull out of control.
Still, it was good to be back. She had grown up in the Dukedom of Louisiana, on the family estate, and although her duty took her from the colony all the way to the capital of the Empire of Gaul, she had missed it. The air here smelled different from the atmosphere of the sprawling monster cities in the Old Continent. She hadn’t planned to return, but her uncle needed looking after. To uphold the family name, she had stepped in to fill his shoes. They were rather large shoes to fill.
A faint noise made her turn. Three men approached from the Broken, running at an easy jog and carrying a bundle. Helena watched them enter the boundary. They slowed. One by one, they stepped through it, inching forward, their faces contorted, their legs bowing under the pressure. A long, torturous minute passed. Finally, the first man was through.
Helena peeled from the cypress trunk and stepped out into the road. Her cloak reacted, the long feathery strands contracting. Without an environment to mimic, they turned pale brown, each strand darkening toward the end. The strands fluttered weakly in the wind, as if she wore a mantle of owl feathers.
The men dumped the bundle on the ground.
To the left, Sebastian dropped thirty feet off a pine, landing in a half crouch. Jasmine stepped from behind the trunk, her bow aimed at the bundle. All around Helena, her unit, twelve of the Hound’s finest, congealed as if by magic from the forest.
The largest of the three men who’d arrived from the Broken, an enormous giant with hair the color of eggshell, dropped onto one knee. Sebastian, her second-in-command, moved to stand by her side, hovering over her and emitting menace. The two men couldn’t have been more different. Karmash, seven and a half feet tall, pale, with long hair so light it was nearly colorless, perfectly manicured nails and a penchant for finer things in life. Sebastian, barely five-ten but weighing nearly the same, darker-skinned, his dark hair cropped short. The ribbon of tattooed words around his neck spelled out FIERCE TO THE END. Monstrously strong and layered with hard, bulging muscle, Sebastian gave the words a new meaning. He was devoted to her the way a dog raised from a puppy is devoted to a kind but firm master. He didn’t trust Karmash, and the albino giant couldn’t stand him. It would be an excellent fight, Helena reflected.
Karmash was a loan, just like Mura, her new slayer shadow, but while the woman fit neatly into the chain of command, Karmash didn’t. He was too used to running the show, and Sebastian hated him with silent, violent fury. That was fine. Sebastian was becoming too secure in his position. He needed some unfriendly competition. Besides, Karmash could enter the Broken, and apparently he got the job done. She had expected nothing less from one of Spider’s operatives.
“My lady.” Karmash’s head was bowed, but his eyes watched her and Sebastian to her left.
“Rise.”
He got up, towering a foot and a half over her. She walked over to the bundle and pulled down her hood. Her hair fell down over her shoulder in a long blond ponytail. “Open it.”
The other operative crouched and sliced through the canvas, dumping a man out in the road. The man rolled up and sat in the dirt. “Hello.”
Helena paced before him, tilting her head to get a better view. Thin. Almost emaciated. Bloodshot eyes. Feverish tint to the skin. Twitching hands. An addict.
“I can’t say I appreciate the treatment.” The man spat in the dirt.
What a sad, ugly wreck of a human being.
She crouched by him and stared into his eyes. He returned her gaze. Most people couldn’t hold it: her pale green eyes with a cat pupil made them uncomfortable. Spider once told her it was like looking into the eyes of a demon and knowing you were about to be devoured. Her uncle always had a flair for the poetic. Sadly, this man was either too addled, too stupid, or too arrogant to cringe.
“Were you bruised?” Helena asked.
“I’m tender in places.” The man sucked mucus back into his nose. “But I could see a way to forgiving this sort of thing, provided you make it worth my while. You did get me out of rehab, after all.”
“Mmm, I see. Do you know who we are?”
“The Hand. The Mirror. Honestly, I don’t give a shit.”
Profanity in the presence of others. Expected of a lowborn mongrel but rude all the same. “Where is the box?”
He raised his chin a bit. “What have you got for me?”
Helena almost laughed. He sat surrounded by the Hounds, and he expected them to bribe him. She leaned closer, her voice quiet. “Are you for sale?”
“Sweetheart, everyone is for sale.” The man shrugged. “You’re new at this? Let me explain to you how things work. I’m not expensive. I know what you’re looking for. You want my sister. Give me what I want, and I’ll tell you all about her.”
“Is that so?” What a worm. No honor. No dignity. No loyalty. Pathetic.
“Like I said, if the price is right, I’m your man. I’ll tell you everything. I’ll even let you in on another guy who beat you to me.”