Kelley Armstrong - The Hunter And The Hunted

Stranz didn’t seem to be doing anything of import. He was just very, very busy. Going here, going there, meeting this person, meeting that one. With every encounter, I had to get close enough to figure out what was going on. That’s not too tough for a witch who’s also an Aspicio half-demon.

My father is Lord Demon Balaam, which makes life as an angel just a little more interesting. It does help in stalking, though, because the power he confers on his offspring is vision enhancement. If I can get on the other side of a wall when Stranz meets someone, I can clear a “peephole” and watch. If I can’t, then that’s when my witch powers come in handy, with blur spells for getting close and cover spells for staying there.

After all that work, I’d discovered that Stranz was simply socializing. Getting together with friends for a walk, a chat, a drink-while we may not need sustenance, we still partake in the rituals of human social life.

As for Stranz himself, my research hadn’t given me any hints to explain the prosecution’s interest. He was a shaman, which meant in the mortal world he’d had a spirit guide, could astral project and had healing abilities. Stranz still had his ayami-his spirit guide-except now the guide inhabited the same plane and had truly become his life partner, as often happens. And healing and spirit travel are absolutely useless in the afterlife. As if to compensate for this loss of powers, ghost shamans get special access to the teleport system, and what Stranz seemed to do with that access was make himself a wide and varied circle of friends. Which was a fun challenge for me, chasing him across the globe. But it wasn’t all that interesting. Until he went to London.

Stranz’s first stop in London was the British Museum, which operates a little differently in the afterlife. In the mortal realm, if you visit a museum exhibit on, say, cave paintings, you’ll get photos of faint-colored lines on dimly lit cave walls, with artist reconstructions of what they might have looked like and theoretical crap about the artist, the purpose, blah, blah, blah. But in the afterlife, if you’re interested in cave paintings, you get yourself over to France and hike out to the caves at Lascaux, and there they are, the colors just as vivid-and the animals just as misshapen-as they were when first painted. If you want to know how or why they were done, you ask one of the painters himself, who lives there, happily telling visitors about his life’s work.

Same goes for pretty much everything you’d find in the British Museum. If you want to explore the past, you just travel. So what is in the afterlife British Museum? Artifacts, pretty much as you’d find in the mortal world version, complete with temporary exhibits. But each artifact is actually a touch portal, which can take you to its natural environment. Access is available to all afterlife residents, except those who’ve had their basic teleportation privileges revoked.

Stranz’s access was fine. From what I’d dug up, he didn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d even need to worry about revocation. A real straight arrow. Born during the Depression, died in the eighties, worked as a family doctor, never had more than a parking ticket in his life. In other words, the sort of person I usually had zero contact with, which made the prosecution’s interest all the more intriguing.

My guess? Stranz was an unwilling-and probably unwitting-pawn in some scheme. A patsy. His squeaky-clean background made him perfect for it, as did his vast number of acquaintances. It was a good bet that one of those “friends” had set Stranz up, either to unknowingly transport goods or information or to take the fall for something.

Which meant, if I was right, that I’d not only be helping Kris, but I’d be helping an innocent guy. That would win me brownie points with the Fates. They get excited when I do good deeds off duty, as if the whole angel gig is finally rubbing off. I might be able to parlay this one into an extra vacation week.

As Stranz climbed the museum’s massive front steps, I lurked in a crowd of the recently dead. You can tell by the dresses and suits-they hadn’t yet learned how to change out of their grave clothes.

I skirted them and hurried on, earning catcalls and whistles from a group of toga-clad young guys lounging on the stairs. I told them where they could shove it-in ancient Latin. That stopped them. One of the gifts that comes with ascended angelhood is a permanent universal translator in my brain. The Fates can’t rescind that when I’m off duty. They’ve just warned me that I should avoid using it for frivolous reasons. Which I do. My definition of frivolous just doesn’t always match theirs.

I spotted Stranz as soon as I entered the museum. He took a left at the Rosetta stone-which, by the way, I can fully translate-then headed through the wing to the room containing pieces of the Greek Parthenon. From there, he teleported to the Acropolis itself. I waited behind Assyrians sighing over friezes as they lamented the late, great sport of lion hunting. Then I cast a blur spell, hurried to the next room and crossed over into ancient Athens.

Like every other place that has passed its heyday, Athens is stuck in its glory years-the good old days of Ancient Greece, before the Romans took over and renamed all their gods. And long before the Ottomans used the Parthenon as an ammo dump and a stray flame reduced it to pretty chunks of marble. Because irreplaceable historic buildings make great places to store gunpowder.

In the afterlife, the Parthenon is still standing, its marble buildings shimmering blindingly white under the midday sun. The grounds were covered with picnickers in garb from across the globe and the centuries. Tourists wound their way through the Acropolis. There were a few guards, but mostly just to make sure no one tried to set up residence.

Most tourists flocked to the Parthenon, the most famous temple on the Acropolis, the one with the forty-foot-tall ivory and gold statue of Athene. When Stranz exited the portal, he headed down the sloping road to the Erechtheion on the Acropolis’s north side. It’s a smaller temple, dedicated to yet another aspect of Athene. Don’t ask me what aspect. I’ve been here; I’ve explored; I’ve never taken the tour.

Stranz headed straight into the temple, meaning he wasn’t touring either. He was meeting someone. Sure enough, as he made his way through the Erechtheion, a woman broke from the gaggle of gawking ghosts and slid after him. I could see they were both heading to the south porch and was about to go around outside to eavesdrop, when the woman… pulsed.

One second she was a solid, fully materialized form, then she faded a little, becoming slightly translucent, before “firming up” again. No one else noticed. I only did because the ability to spot glamours is yet another part of my angel package.

I concentrated on the woman, trying to see what lay beneath her glamour. For a moment, she was just a woman. Late twenties, dark hair, pale skin. Then her skin went as white as the surrounding marble. Her dark hair began to writhe, snakes slithering through it. Two more snakes encircled her arms and a third acted as a belt. Her short skirt and boots stayed the same, but she accessorized with wings. Put the wings together with the snakes and the huntress costume and there was no doubt what I was seeing. An Erinys. Better known as a Fury.

I zipped out of the temple and around to the south, where I cloaked myself in a cover spell and hid under the row of Caryatids-the marble maidens that stand watch over the porch. I could hear three people above speaking in ancient Sumerian, which sounded like they were waxing poetic on the beauty and majesty of their surroundings… until I realized they were just trying to figure out where to grab lunch. I presumed Stranz and the Erinys were up there, waiting for the others to move on.