Knight's Curse by Karen Duvall Page A

to his chair and sank into it with a flourish. Heaving a sigh like the weight of the world had just risen off his shoulders, he said, “I know what we need to do.”
    And by “we” he meant to include me. Which was okay because I had vital information now. I had a rune divination I needed interpreted, which might help me gain my freedom somehow. A thrill coursed through me that I had to hide. This felt right to me, as if I could really make it happen. Except like almost everything in my life, it would come at a price.
    Why had Gavin waited until now to give me my mother’s note? What was so special about today as opposed to last month, or last year? He said I hadn’t been ready until now. I think it had something to do with me reaching my breaking point today. I’d become more of a handful. Change was in the air.
    “There’s someone I need you to see,” Gavin said, hands steepled, the tips of his index fingers touching his lips. “Someone very special who never talks to anyone, but I know she’ll talk to you.”
    I couldn’t help being wary. “Who is she?”
    “You know her.” He tapped his mouth again. “In fact, you two just met. She’s the original owner of that hand you were supposed to bring me.”
    That should have stunned me, but instead it made sense in an odd, behind-the-looking-glass kind of way. The connection I’d made with the saint’s hand is what resonated for me. The woman still existed, just not in the usual way. “I thought she was dead.”
    He tilted his head left to right. “Not completely. All that’s left of her now is her head. Her other body parts were parceled off centuries ago. We’ll find them eventually.”
    “So where is she?”
    “Denver.”
    “Colorado?”
    “Saint Geraldine, or what’s left of her, is entombed at the Cathedral Basilica there. We had her moved when it became too dangerous to keep her at the Sultan Ahmed Mosque in Istanbul. The political unrest in the Middle East is such an inconvenience.” He grimaced as if tasting something sour. “The cathedral is a beautiful church built by one of our own members over a century ago. You’ll be impressed.”
    Dizzy with anticipation, I tried to be the compliant thief Gavin expected. “So Denver is where you’re sending me next.”
    His grin tilted one corner of his mouth. “Saint Geraldine may be the only one who can help us find your father.”
     
     
    Autumn was damn cold in Denver. I was thinking this while standing on the sidewalk outside the Vyantara’s Father house in Denver’s warehouse district. I arched my back to stare up at the redbrick building that used to be a factory. It looked abandoned now, though I knew a modest number of sorcerers, witches and other magic users resided within. Three angry-looking effigies of gargoyles glared down at me from stone shelves just below the roofline. I wondered if they’d ever been alive. Probably, considering the rare death of a gargoyle rendered it in stone.
    A gust of wind blew a flurry of fallen leaves around my ankles and I stiffened. Was it wind, or something else? I’d never visited the American Fatherhouse before, but I’d been to a few in other countries. My trips abroad, which were always to steal a magical object coveted by the Vyantara, never lasted but a day or two since I couldn’t be away from Shui any longer than that. It took only one day at a Fatherhouse to feed an eon’s worth of nightmares. If it was supernatural, it likely lived in or around a Vyantara Fatherhouse.
    I removed one nose filter and sniffed the air. An animal stench permeated the night, mostly fecal, and the stale odor hinted at its age. Must have been a stockyard nearby years ago, but not anymore.
    Peering up at the stone gargoyles, I saw shadowy silhouettes that skulked around them and pulsed with whatever darkness still smoldered inside the dead creatures’ corpses.
    Slipping out one of my contacts, I could see that energies of the night, particularly this close to the