Paladin (Graven Gods Book 1) Read online

  Then my aunt had died, and I moved back to the house I’d inherited from my mother, opened my bookstore, and gotten serious about writing.

  Now I had to wonder what Paladin had been up to all that time, especially when I slept. That was, after all, when the spell gave him full control over my body, resulting in those incredibly vivid dreams. “Did you go out hunting Valakans when I lived with Mary?”

  He shot me a get serious look. “Considering I occupied the body of a child -- whose brain I could have fried just by using my magic -- that would have been utterly irresponsible. I didn’t patrol until you moved back to Graven.”

  I knew exactly when, too, because I remembered the dream I’d had that night. I’d written it down because it was so bloody and disturbing I was afraid I’d lose my mind if I didn’t.

  “I’m sorry,” Paladin said softly. “But I had to start patrolling again. Valak was back in town, and I had to help Zanos-James deal with the fallout.” As god of justice, he had a responsibility to Graven’s magical community. Because of his sheer power, he’d become chief lieutenant to the God of Graven, Zanos-James, also his best friend.

  I frowned. “If you were running around Graven playing Batman, why didn’t Valak recognize me? At the gym he acted like he’d never seen me before. What’d you do, wear a mask?”

  He gave me a look. “Your nerd is showing. I used spells to change your appearance, and I never took your car, since it could have been traced back to you.”

  “How’d you get around?”

  He shrugged. “Whoever I was partnering with gave me a ride. Usually that was Zanos-James’s daughter, Opal.” I knew Opal. We’d played together as kids. Now Paladin’s memories told me she was her father’s heir.

  “Why not just buy a car?”

  “Where would I have kept it? Valak would have eventually found it and used it to track you down.”

  “Good point.” I sighed, and started brooding. He wasn’t the only one who had responsibilities, either. I too, had duties I couldn’t ignore. My dream of being a writer was pretty much over. Same with the shop. I was going to have to close it too.

  Paladin looked at me, frowning. “Summer, you don’t have to quit writing or running a business. Those things ground you. You need them.”

  “When am I going to have time? Between playing the Dark Knight of Graven and combat practice…”

  “We can make time. I’m not going to gut your life.”

  The fact that he cared made me feel more like I mattered. “But…”

  “But nothing. Of course you matter. I love you. And you’re not giving up the shop or your writing. Period.”

  I took a deep breath, his insistence making me feel a bit better. He did care. “Yeah, I suppose I could figure something out. Maybe hire somebody to work the shop when we have a late night or something. It might be tight…”

  “Not really. I’ve got money in various funds.” Correctly interpreting my stare, he shrugged. “I’m immortal. I’ve had a long time to invest, and I’m good at it.”

  I knew what my mother would say to letting my god waste his money on me.

  “Forget your mother. I’ll spend my money as I damned well please.”

  Which made me smile. “All right, but… One thing she always said is that combat has to be a consuming obsession, or you end up getting yourself killed.” I remembered the night she’d died -- the stark ferocity on her face as she crouched, sword in hand…

  Wait, my mother’s sword. Had Eris been lost after she died?

  Paladin shook his head. “I used my magic to contact Zanos-James after we escaped.”

  As god of Graven, Zanos-James was responsible for keeping the magical community under the radar -- a full time job in the age of YouTube and camera phones.

  “The sword fight would have raised far too many questions, so he made the whole thing look like a home invasion. He staged it to look as if Barbara used a gun to defend herself, shooting her attackers before dying of her injuries. Then he collected Eris and called the cops, who found you hiding in the neighbor’s garage.”

  I shuddered, remembering the howl of sirens as I hid behind the lady’s SUV, shaking and traumatized, remembering nothing. To distract myself from that ugly memory, I said, “I thought we usually sanitized scenes so the dead just vanished without a trace.”

  “Usually we do, but not when there’s a child survivor. We had to explain what happened to your mother and why you’d gone to live with your aunt, so you could later inherit the property Barbara left you.”

  Calliope spoke up. “The last thing we needed was for police to mount a full-fledged murder investigation.” Tail coiled neatly over her toes, she watched us quietly, ears pricked in interest. “We have a hard enough time keeping the humans out of our business as it is.”

  “What about Mom’s spirit? I remember how she had to use Eris to recover the souls of Richard and Dad. Who did that for her?”

  “Since she was holding the sword when she fell, Eris was able to take her in.” Paladin curled a disgusted lip. “Good thing, too, because the goddess refused to let me so much as touch that sword since then. She holds a grudge over what happened to Barbara, not that I can blame her.”

  “You may not blame her, but I do. Eris is a flaming bitch,” Calliope growled.

  “Well, she’s going to have to get over it. I need that sword.” Those of my line had always carried Eris into battle, and I had no intention of giving up that advantage.

  The goddess’ power combined with Paladin’s had made Mom virtually unstoppable. I badly needed Eris in order to survive whatever the Valakans threw at me next. “We’re going to have to go hunting for Valak, and we need her help. Otherwise, he’ll ambush us again, and the next time he may get lucky.”

  Besides, the sword’s main job for my mother had been to purify the magic Mom absorbed from the Valakans. Without the goddess, that evil would eventually drive me mad.

  “It won’t, no matter what Eris does.” Paladin sounded cool, icily confident. “I’ve found a woman who cleanses the magic for me. We do not need Eris.”

  “I do.” And I went off to get her, Calliope trotting after me.

  Paladin just growled, “Good luck with that.”

  Chapter Eight

  “Actually, Paladin’s got a point,” Calliope said, as she flitted along at my heels. “Are you sure this is a good idea? She’s still pretty pissed about Barbara’s death.”

  “So am I,” I growled. “She just needs to be pissed off at the right god -- Valak. A bastard I’m damned well going to kill.”

  “Unfortunately, Valak’s harder to stomp than a zombie cockroach raised on radioactive Twinkies. We thought Barbara had taken him out, but he somehow survived. If she couldn’t take him…”

  “That’s why we need Eris.” I ducked into the kitchen, then descended the claustrophobically narrow flight of stairs that led to the house’s wine cellar.

  Great-great-grandfather Paladin-Henry St. Clare, who’d built the house, had been something of a wine connoisseur back in the day. Racks of bottles of Riesling, Pinot Noir, Bordeaux, Champagne, Sauvignon Blanc, Merlot… Basically, if it was a fine wine, it was there, probably old as hell and incredibly expensive.

  A flick of the light switch revealed hundreds of dusty bottles tucked into the ancient wooden rack that stood ten feet high against the basement’s stone wall. I hesitated a moment, overwhelmed by the selection. Then I took a deep breath and started counting bottles.

  Two down, tug that bottle of Merlot out a few inches, over three, depress that Riesling exactly an inch and a half, skip the next shelf, and push in the fourth bottle of Chardonnay three inches. Count three shelves down and tug out the 1924 Pinot, the 1960 Merlot, and the ‘66 Sauvignon Blanc, an inch, a half-inch, and three inches respectively.

  Then I waited to see whether it would work, muscles tensing. God knew it should, considering how many times my mother had made Richard and me practice it. But given the amnesia…

  Wi
th a creaking grind, the entire shelf began to pivot. Sighing in relief, I skipped backward to avoid the rotating rack, then ducked into the opening revealed as it stopped.

  Lights came on as I entered, and I stared around in wonder. It was exactly the same as I remembered it, as if my mother had only just stepped away.

  That thought sliced into my heart like a spear thudding home. I thrust it aside impatiently. I didn’t have time to indulge my inner drama queen.

  The combination weapons room and library ran the entire length of the house. Shelf after floor-to-ceiling shelf stood crammed with books, swords, daggers, armor, and objets d’art.

  Paladin’s diaries alone took up one whole wall, recording the events of his many lives over many thousands of years. So very many years, in fact, that if he didn’t write down what had happened, he’d forget. Especially given how he moved into a new skull every fifty years or so.

  I frowned at the opposite wall of shelves, occupied by an extensive collection of gems, weapons, and other magical objects. In my childhood, they’d held the volumes belonging to my father’s god. “What happened to Ulf’s books?”

  “The diaries went with him when I found him a host last year. You’ll remember his new Avatar, Mark Andrews.”

  “Richard’s best friend?” When he nodded, I smiled. “I used to play with his sister, Sara. I can remember sliding down the banister with them.”

  “Your fathers were also planning to negotiate a betrothal between you two when Graham died,” Paladin told me. “Mark has excellent bloodlines, not to mention a lot of talent. Ulf was glad to get him.”

  “Eleven years is a long time to spend in a sword.”

  “Especially any sword Eris occupies,” Calliope muttered.

  “Shhh,” I muttered back. “Don’t piss off the nice goddess before I even draw her.” I scanned the shelves Ulf’s diaries had once occupied. Now they were filled with other spell books and grimoires, interspaced with all kinds of magical objects and weapons Paladin had collected over the years. The magical weight of it all was so intense, I felt it burn over my skin like radioactivity.

  As similes went, that one was fairly apt. Unlike radioactivity, the magical aura wouldn’t exactly kill you in and of itself. Still, if you picked up the wrong residence of the wrong god, you could end up deader than Elvis. Some of those boys didn’t play.

  Paladin often took protective custody of retired or vacationing gods to keep them out of the hands of the foolish or unwary -- particularly when it came to those gods at the darker end of the spectrum. Not all the assorted dust catchers housed gods, evil or otherwise, but enough of them did that I had no desire to go around picking stuff up.

  I was also acutely aware of the need to keep the enchanted bric-a-brac out of the wrong hands. Some folks just don’t need their own private god, of whatever shade. It’d be like giving a thermonuclear bomb to a drunken redneck. The last thing you’d ever hear was, “Hey, y’all, watch this!”

  Yeah, no.

  There was one particular object, though, that I was deeply interested in.

  Mother’s rapier occupied a place of honor on its own eye level shelf, resting on an exquisitely carved three-hundred-year-old sword rack of polished ebony. Tigers peered from among stands of bamboo, their inset emerald eyes glittering from between the leaves, tails sinuous curves. The design was evidently based on the weapon itself.

  The rapier’s hilt was shaped like a tiger whose snarling jaws gaped around the blade, emerald eyes glaring. You slid your hand into the basket formed by the long curling tail of the beast, which tightened magically during combat so you couldn’t be disarmed.

  The blade itself was engraved with magical sigils -- spells that applied strength and endurance. It dated from the sixteenth century, which was when Eris had gone into the god version of retirement. Only instead of playing bridge like a normal little old lady, she ate people.

  Bad people, but still.

  I hesitated, staring at the weapon, hypnotized by grief-stricken memories. Mother had seemed invincible, between Eris and Paladin. Maybe she would have been, if it hadn’t been for the necessity of protecting me. As it was, she’d sent her god away, and she’d lost, and she’d died.

  And no matter what logic said, something in me insisted it was my fault.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” Calliope asked uneasily. “Eris can be nasty.”

  “That’s like saying the Antarctic is a little chilly.” Paladin popped in out of nowhere, looking grim. “In all seriousness, don’t do this. It’s not worth it. She could hurt you badly.”

  He showed me a vivid memory of what she’d done the last time he’d dared try to draw her. She’d tossed his godly ass across the room and suggested that if he didn’t want to get eaten, he should leave her the hell alone.

  “She’s lucky I didn’t decide to see who ate whom,” Paladin growled. “Personally, I think she’d have ended up the entree.” He sighed. “But then I’d have had to think of something to do with all those spirits she protects, and short of moving into the sword myself…” He curled a lip. “Which I was definitely not willing to do.”

  “I still need to do this, Paladin.” Mostly because I was fucking terrified. “You know how Mom always insisted we do those things that frightened us most. I need to get back in the habit.”

  “She wasn’t referring to things that could actually eat you, Summer.”

  I gave him a look. “Oh, don’t try to bullshit me. Her first objective was to make sure she didn’t hand you a coward as a host.”

  “Okay, yeah,” he admitted. “But being afraid doesn’t make you a coward. It just means you’re smart enough not to get into a pissing match with the Bitch Blade.”

  “Do me a favor -- don’t call her that when I draw her, all right? She really will light me up like a Christmas tree.” I licked dry lips, wondering nervously just how much it would hurt if she decided to stick my ass in a godly Cuisinart.

  But Mom was right. You have to do what scares you most, or you’ll never do anything that really matters.

  Despite my instinct to handle the rapier as if it were electrified, I forced myself to lift the sheathed weapon from its shelf. My hands didn’t even shake. Much.

  I also didn’t get blasted across the room. Go, me.

  Calliope didn’t seem much comforted, though. She stared up at me, tail bushed and lashing in anxiety. I managed a smile. “Have a little faith, fuzzy.”

  “I have plenty of faith in you, Summer,” she muttered. “It’s the giant butcher knife I don’t trust.”

  Neither did I, but I knew I couldn’t wait until I went up against Valak to find out if Eris was going to fry me like a fork in an electrical socket. Swallowing, I slid my hand into the coil of the tiger’s tail and wrapped my fingers around the hilt. Breath held, I drew the blade from the scabbard in a single smooth pull.

  The goddess of birth and death fell on me like the Great Wall of China.

  It was the same sort of ferocious storm of power and magic I’d felt when Paladin blasted into my brain at the age of twelve.

  Old. Eris was so incredibly old. Centuries and centuries of memories swamped my fly-blink twenty-five years like a tidal wave capsizing a dingy.

  And power, searing as a forest fire, merciless as a tornado shredding a single-wide. Unlike Paladin, she made no effort whatsoever to protect me from her own vicious power. Oh, hell, this is some kind of survival of the fittest shit. If she destroys me, she’ll say I didn’t deserve to live anyway.

  Panic screamed through me. “Paladin!”

  “I’m here, Summer!” He shot up around me, a warm bulwark of power, growling at Eris. “Back off!”

  “No, you bastard,” the goddess hissed, upping the vicious pressure she was exerting against me. “I’m not going to let you keep me from testing the little twit. I will see what she’s made of, whether you like it or not!”

  I could feel pieces of myself begin to peel off under her battering like shingles peeling off
a roof in a tornado, and screamed in terrified rage. No. Fuck, no! I will not fail, damn it! I set my jaw and threw myself against the wall of psychic force. My mother’s daughter would not let herself be destroyed by a giant metal toothpick. I owed Mom more than that. She’d died for me, damn it. I would not give up. I wouldn’t let Eris rip me apart!

  But even as I fought, she went on and on slicing me like the sword she was, cutting and stabbing at my consciousness until I could almost see the scarlet sprays of blood. This is it, I’m dead, I’m…

  Paladin blasted through the barrier she’d erected to prevent him from protecting me. He blocked the ripping psychic wind, curling around me in a magical shield that let me breathe. I gasped, huddling behind his strength, and concentrated on surviving. “I’ve got you, Summer,” he murmured. “You’re safe.”

  “And that’s her whole problem,” Eris snapped. “You’ve coddled the little wench until she’s got no spine. You’re more interested in fucking her than using her as the weapon she should be. Pervert.” To me she added coldly, “Your mother would be so ashamed of you, Summer Caroline.”

  And the worst part of it was, I wondered if she was right.

  Panting, I opened my eyes to find the library’s Persian carpet inches from my nose. A drop of scarlet landed in the middle of the intricate yellow pattern.

  My nose was bleeding. Awesome.

  And Eris wasn’t done yet. “I’m glad your mother is not alive to see what you’ve become -- nothing more than a mincing little arteest instead of the warrior she raised you to be. Paladin has ruined you, just as I feared he would.”

  “Eris,” I panted, as I sat back on my heels, wiping at my nose with the back of my wrist and eying the smears of crimson left there. Yep, still bleeding. “Fuck… You.”

  The sword lay on the floor halfway across the room where I’d apparently thrown it when she’d hit me. The scabbard lay half under the bookshelf that stretched across the opposite wall. Gathering myself, I rose to my feet and limped over to collect the sheath. I’d wrenched my right ankle when I’d fallen, but at least it wasn’t sprained.