House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1) by Sarah J. Maas

“I’m sure he paid you in cash to hide the money trail,” Bryce said. She yawned. “Look, I’m tired and hungry, and I don’t feel like playing this game. Name your price so I can be on my way.”

Those goatlike eyes snapped to hers. “Fifty thousand gold marks.”

Bryce smiled as Hunt held in his curse. “Do you know my boss paid fifty thousand to watch a pack of Helhounds rip apart a satyr? Said it was the best minute of her miserable life.”

“Forty-five.”

“Don’t waste my time with nonsense offers.”

“I won’t go below thirty. Not for that much obsidian.”

“Ten.” Ten thousand gold marks was still outrageous. But summoning salts were extraordinarily valuable. How many demons had he hunted because of them? How many dismembered bodies had he seen from summonings gone wrong? Or right, if it was a targeted attack?

Bryce held up her phone. “In five minutes, I’m expected to call Jesiba, and say that the obsidian salt is in my possession. In six minutes, if I do not make that phone call, someone will knock on that door. And it will not be someone for me.”

Hunt honestly couldn’t tell if Quinlan was bluffing. She likely wouldn’t have told him—could have gotten that order from her boss while he was sitting on the roof. If Jesiba Roga was dealing with whatever shit the obsidian implied, either for her own uses or on behalf of the Under-King … Maybe Bryce hadn’t committed the murder, but rather abetted it.

“Four minutes,” Bryce said.

Sweat slid down the satyr’s temple and into his thick beard. Silence.

Despite his suspicions, Hunt had the creeping feeling that this assignment was either going to be a fuck-ton of fun or a nightmare. If it got him to his end goal, he didn’t care one way or another.

Bryce perched on the rotting arm of the chair and began typing into her phone, no more than a bored young woman avoiding social interaction.

The satyr whirled toward Hunt. “You’re the Umbra Mortis.” He swallowed audibly. “You’re one of the triarii. You protect us—you serve the Governor.”

Before Hunt could reply, Bryce lifted her phone to show him a photo of two fat, roly-poly puppies. “Look what my cousin just adopted,” she told him. “That one is Osirys, and the one on the right is Set.” She lowered the phone before he could come up with a response, thumbs flying.

But she glanced at Hunt from under her thick lashes. Play along, please, she seemed to say.

So Hunt said, “Cute dogs.”

The satyr let out a small whine of distress. Bryce lifted her head, curtain of red hair limned with silver in her screen’s light. “I thought you’d be running to get the salt by now. Maybe you should, considering you’ve got”—a glance at the phone, fingers flying—“oh. Ninety seconds.”

She opened what looked like a message thread and began typing.

The satyr whispered, “T-twenty thousand.”

She held up a finger. “I’m writing back to my cousin. Give me two seconds.” The satyr was trembling enough that Hunt almost felt bad. Almost, until—

“Ten, ten, damn you! Ten!”

Bryce smiled. “No need to shout,” she purred, pressing a button that had her phone ringing.

“Yes?” The sorceress picked up after the first ring.

“Call off your dogs.”

A breathy, feminine laugh. “Done.”

Bryce lowered the phone. “Well?”

The satyr rushed to the back, hooves thumping on the worn floors, and procured a wrapped bundle a moment later. It reeked of mold and dirt. Bryce lifted a brow. “Put it in a bag.”

“I don’t have a—” Bryce gave him a look. The satyr found one. A stained, reusable grocery bag, but better than holding the slab in public.

Bryce weighed the salt in her hands. “It’s two ounces over.”

“It’s seven and seven! Just what you asked for! It’s all cut to sevens.”

Seven—the holy number. Or unholy, depending on who was worshipping. Seven Asteri, seven hills in their Eternal City, seven neighborhoods and seven Gates in Crescent City; seven planets, and seven circles in Hel, with seven princes who ruled them, each darker than the last.

Bryce inclined her head. “If I measure it and it’s not—”

“It is!” the satyr cried. “Dark Hel, it is!”

Bryce tapped some buttons on her phone. “Ten grand, transferred right to you.”

Hunt kept at her back as she strode out, the satyr half-seething, half-trembling behind them.

She opened the door, grinning to herself, and Hunt was about to start demanding answers when she halted. When he also beheld who stood outside.

The tall, moon-skinned woman was dressed in a gold jumpsuit, emerald hoop earrings hanging lower than her chin-length black bob. Her full lips were painted in purple so dark it was nearly black, and her remarkable green eyes … Hunt knew her by the eyes alone.

Humanoid in every aspect, but for them. Green entirely, marbled with veins of jade and gold. Interrupted only by a slitted pupil now razor-thin in the warehouse lights. A snake’s eyes.

Or a Viper Queen’s.





19

Bryce shouldered the canvas bag, surveying the Viper Queen. “Nice outfit.”

The serpentine shifter smiled, revealing bright white teeth—and canines that were slightly too elongated. And slightly too thin. “Nice bodyguard.”