LITMIR.BIZ

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noted the tall, leggy blonde and her considerably less impressive companion. “So? Who are they?”

      “Who cares who he is? Probably a snack. She’s Brünnhilde.”

      Lucien’s brows drew together. “Who the hell is Brünnhilde?”

      Polly gave him a smug grin. “She’s a Valkyrie, baby. I found you a Valkyrie.”

      The bloodsucker beside her frowned. “Who’s this asshole? Why does he get a Valkyrie?”

      Polly slapped his hand. “I’m not giving her to him, you idiot. She’s a freaking Valkyrie. And have some respect. This is Lucien. He’s the—”

      “Thanks, Polly. You can quit there. A little discretion?” He turned toward the table where the Valkyrie sat, but Polly put her foot in his path.

      “Hey. No thank-you? Not even a little kiss?” She tilted her head and pointed to her cheek.

      Lucien smiled, remembering his manners. He’d be wise to keep Polly on his good side. And she had done him a favor. He leaned in, but instead of kissing her cheek, he lifted her hand from around the vamp’s shoulder and kissed the back of it, to the annoyance of both parties.

      Polly flipped her hair, black this evening, over her shoulder. “Come by tomorrow at two. You can thank me properly.”

      Lucien approached the Valkyrie’s table, realizing halfway there that he didn’t know what to offer for information from a Valkyrie. What did Valkyries want? Souls? They didn’t need him for that. And he wasn’t likely to be able to give them any valiant, heroic ones. He lucked out, though, as she seemed thoroughly bored with her companion.

      He smiled winningly at her as she glanced up. “Pardon the intrusion, but would you care to dance?” No one else was dancing, but Brünnhilde rose and accepted as if eager to escape.

      The song that had been playing was more on the swing spectrum, but the band switched to something slow and melodic. Lucien put his arm around her waist and took her hand, feeling like an adolescent next to her. It was like dancing with a tree.

      “I’m Lucien,” he offered.

      “Brünnhilde.”

      “That’s a lovely name.”

      Brünnhilde’s brow arched. “Is it? In 2017 in the Southwestern United States?”

      Lucien laughed. “Well, Lucien isn’t exactly in fashion, either. Your name stands out. And it suits you.”

      “I get the impression you want something from me, Lucien.”

      “Can’t a guy ask a beautiful woman to dance?”

      She gave him another brow arch, this time without amusement, and he laughed.

      “All right. I’ll cut to the chase, since you’ve been gracious enough to indulge me. I understand you’re a Valkyrie. I hope that’s not out of line to say.”

      Brünnhilde shrugged noncommittally. “Perhaps.”

      He wasn’t sure if she was half-heartedly confirming her identity or agreeing that he was out of line, but he forged ahead. “I wondered if you might have heard anything about the Wild Hunt.”

      “You speak of Odin’s Hunt.”

      “I believe so, yes. But one that’s out of season.”

      Brünnhilde’s green eyes flickered with annoyance. “Indeed it is. The Chieftain of the Hunt defies propriety. No surprise, given his protector.”

      “His protector?”

      “A mortal who wields peculiar magic. She somehow bested one of my sisters to win him.”

      “That’s surprising. Why does he need protection? And from a mortal, no less?”

      “Because his body is meant to sleep while he rides. But when Kára removed her own protection from him, she also gave him the power to ride while in his skin. It’s a disgrace. Of course, Kára was a disgrace long before this latest stunt.”

      “Kára? She’s your sister?”

      Brünnhilde nodded tersely. “She calls herself Faye these days. She was once a great warrior, but she defied the Norns to coddle this man, fallen in battle. Instead of taking him to his reward in Valhalla, she kept him as a pet. In exchange, he was cursed to lead Odin’s Hunt.”

      “This man, the chieftain—you say he was fallen. You mean he died?”

      “Precisely. Died in battle, but Kára broke the laws of the Valkyries, the laws of Odin himself.”

      “So he shouldn’t be here. His life is unnatural.”

      Brünnhilde shrugged. “Well. None of the wraiths of the Hunt should be here. And yet they are. They are all unnatural. That’s what makes them wraiths, does it not? How else would we have the Hunt?”

      The music ended, and Lucien thanked her for the dance.

      Brünnhilde glanced back at the table where her inexplicably dull companion was waiting for her. “I suppose I’ll have to take him now. Warriors aren’t what they used to be. She sighed and headed back to her table.

      Lucien had the answer he needed. Leo Ström was as unnatural as a man could get. His soul might once have been destined for Valhalla, but now it belonged in hell.

      * * *

      He donned his hunting attire and made sure the arrows in his quiver were all equipped with his specially designed arrowheads. Having Smok labs at his disposal had come in handy in his quest to rid the world of revenants and demons. The exploding tips were filled with a serum known at the lab as the Soul Reaper. Developed for those dangerous and recalcitrant creatures they occasionally came across on their consults, it was deadly to the inhuman. And if the inhuman creature it struck happened to have a human soul remaining in it, the remnant was dissolved and relegated, presumably, to hell.

      In all honesty, Lucien wasn’t sure he believed in an afterlife of reward or punishment, but he’d seen plenty of evidence of an underworld—or perhaps underworlds—a plane where the supernatural elements of living things, whether spirit or soul or something else, could travel. Virtually every religious tradition had its own version of this soul realm—and a ruler of it.

      He took a more discreet car this time and drove to the home where Rhea Carlisle and Leo Ström were staying. No point waiting to see if the Hunt would ride tonight. He knew what Leo was. And if the revenant was already out for the evening, Lucien would wait. He’d brought a ski mask to avoid revealing his identity to Theia’s twin.

      A little twinge of conscience tugged at him, reminding him that an insult or injury to one twin was likely to be felt by the other. Not physically, necessarily, but in terms of emotional harm, regardless of how close they were. And these two had seemed particularly close when he’d seen them together. He and his sister Lucy didn’t see eye to eye—after years of sibling rivalry fueled by their father’s vagaries, sometimes they downright hated each other—but he knew that if anything happened to Lucy, if anyone dared to hurt her, he’d be furious. He’d want retribution.

      But he couldn’t allow his feelings to get in the way of his mission. This wasn’t about him, in any event. It was about the kind of people the Smoks had cozied up to for hundreds of years. No, not people, but things. Lucien felt it was his duty to make up for the evil his family enabled.

      Helping a foolish family that had invited a demon into their home was one thing, and the routine cleansing of unwanted spiritual activity was a necessary service, but Smok Consulting had covered up depravities—cleaning up blood-spattered rooms after a nest of bloodsuckers had engaged in a Caligula-style orgy and fed on their half-dead victims for days; disposing of bodies when a shape-shifter lost control and slaughtered its own family, and then allowing that shape-shifting abomination to start a new life somewhere else with no consequences. The thought of how many lives his own family had allowed to be destroyed, looking the other

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