by D. N. Hoxa
Chapter Fifteen
Alexander Adams stopped moving.
Everyone stopped moving. My stomach turned. The taste on my tongue returned as if by a switch. I still didn’t look away from Adams. His lips parted and blood ran out of his mouth, dripping down his chin. Carter pulled him to the side and he fell on the ground, face first. Damian’s sword was still inside him, the tip of the blade coming out the other side of Adams’s neck.
My knees were cold suddenly, and I realized that I had fallen, too. Something was pressing into my stomach, like a hand trying to pull all my innards right out of my mouth. It came up so violently there was no chance to stop it. My hands were on the ground, too, my mouth wide open. Blood came out of it, and my nostrils, too. Cold blood. Warm blood. Disgusting, rusty blood—and it wouldn’t stop. Breathing was impossible. A hand on my shoulder tried to pull me up, but my body bent down again, needing to let out everything I had inside. Every drop of filthy, disgusting blood.
I was convinced that by the time I had no more of it left in me, my lungs would explode, but by some miracle I survived. I breathed in and air made it inside me. In my mouth was the most disgusting taste I’d ever tasted in my life. Blood and rot and dirt all rolled into one. My heart was beating again—fast, like it was angry at me for shutting it down for so long. My mind was my own and the feeling in my body was worse than the worst hangover I’d ever had.
Being a vampire sucked ass.
I raised my head, afraid to even wipe my mouth for fear I’d start throwing up again. I was surrounded by people and werewolves, but none of them were even looking at me. They were looking at the beginning of the street, and I couldn’t see anything, so I made an attempt to stand up. Once on my feet, I swayed to the sides like somebody was pulling my strings. My shoulder slammed onto a back, and when the man standing behind me turned around, I saw that it was Zane. I hadn’t seen him in a while, but he hadn’t changed much. Other than the pitch black eyes, the fangs, and the blood and dirt all over him, he looked just like the last time we met. He wrapped an arm around mine and held me up before he turned to the street again, and I did the same.
And I saw the soldiers.
My heart skipped a long beat. There were so many of them. They’d formed a literal wall of people from one side of the street to the other, and there were at least a hundred of them there, all staring right at us.
Something cold touched my hand and I looked down to see Carter’s wolf, nudging me with his muzzle. I patted him on the head as something climbed over the back of my leg. It was Kit and he’d shifted into a squirrel again. Damian stepped in front of the crowd, toward the soldiers, both his hands up.
“Are the girls okay?” I whispered to Kit when he made it to my shoulder. He looked perfectly fine, too. His fur was dirty and bloody, but if he’d been hurt, he’d already healed. He squeaked weakly, and I recognized it as a yes. A long breath left me. I turned my head, hoping to see Malin’s or Jamie’s face, but they weren’t with the people and the wolves still alive. Only twelve were left.
Instead, I saw Moira. Her hair was shorter, her eyes wider, full of panic as she watched Damian approach the wall of soldiers. Nobody dared to make a single sound.
“You need to leave now,” I whispered to Kit. He squeaked. “Take your family and go someplace safe. Watch after them, okay? I’m going to miss you.” I kissed him on the side of the head. He squeaked louder. “It’s over, buddy. You’re not alone anymore, and you know how to live on Earth. Just go.” My voice shook. “Remember me, okay? Talk about me to the little ones in a millennia or so.”
Tears stung my eyes. I’d known this moment would come when I decided to join this fight, and I still couldn’t bring myself to regret it. Damian was talking to three soldiers who’d stepped forward and broken the formation, but without the vampire ears, I couldn’t hear anything. Carter’s wolf nudged me again, and I was glad to have a reason to drop to my knees.
“It’s going to be fine,” I told him. “I’m going to tell them the truth. The whole truth. I’ll be fine.”
We both knew it was a lie. Carter whined, but he knew there was no other choice. This had been the whole point behind the decision to keep me in the Bronx in the first place, but now it was over. A second later, he licked the side of my face with his ridiculously large tongue, making me flinch. Ugh.
“Thanks, Carter.”
Kit squeaked and squeaked in protest, but eventually he gave up and just hugged me, his small arms stretching over the side of my face. He couldn’t reach very far, but I felt it all the way to my bones. He’d never hugged me before. It was nice.
“I love you, little guy,” I whispered to him once more, then forced him off my shoulder. If I didn’t, he wasn’t going to leave, and he needed to. He had a family now. I wished I could see the girls, too, give them a hug before they took me, but I didn’t have any energy to even walk anymore. I could only stand because I was holding onto Zane.
Two minutes later, the soldiers came for us. They told us to keep our hands in the air and step away from one another, but I couldn’t let go of Zane, so I just waited for them there. The panic nearly suffocated me before the first soldiers stepped in front of me. My mind wanted me to fight, my heart wanted me to reach into anything I had left and just sprout a pair of wings and fly out of there, but I couldn’t. My body was too weak. I could never escape these soldiers. I couldn’t even try.
“It will be fine,” Zane whispered to me, and I appreciated it much more than he knew. His voice rang in my ears, echoed in my mind and it grounded me when two soldiers grabbed me by the arms and pulled me forward. Resisting them was out of the question. They put my arms behind my back and put cuffs over my wrists, locked them tightly. Ahead, Damian was barely twenty feet away from me, his own hands cuffed behind his back, five soldiers surrounding him. His shoulders were hunched and there was an expression in his face I had never seen before—defeat. He felt defeated and he said it with his eyes when he looked at me.
It’s okay, I wanted to tell him, but I couldn’t.
“It was worth it,” I whispered to the night, knowing, hoping he’d hear it. He needed to know that he had been worth it for me. I already knew he blamed himself for this, but he didn’t need to. He thought he’d taken my life from me when he made me help him find that amulet, but he actually gave me life. I’d been nothing but a zombie before I met him, going through the motions, pretending I was okay with living without actually living, but he opened my eyes. He had showed me that there was more out there than just keeping your head down and staying out of trouble. And for that, death was a very small price to pay.
I just wished I could have kissed him once more.
The soldiers pulled me forward, two by my side, another at my back, and one of them grabbed the back of my head and lowered it. I lost sight of Damian. The soldiers pulled me because they didn’t know what it was like inside my body, but I was glad they did. By the fifth step, my legs and my mind gave up on me.
Chapter Sixteen
Damian Reed
Sunlight fell on my eyes. I looked at it, but I couldn’t be bothered to put a hand over my face at all. Five sets of eyes looked up at me like they were witnessing me getting my head cut off right in front of them.
“I’m not going to die,” I reminded the Bane for one last time. The sun was about to set any minute now. The light was weak, but it still affected me. It would still stain my skin, but I had bigger things to worry about.
After spending the entire night and day locked in an interrogation room inside the Guild’s Protection Unit, I was finally let go. The Bane had been questioned, too, and they’d said exactly what we’d planned: that they were out having a drink in the Shade when they fell unconscious. When they woke up, they helped stop Alexander Adams—who’d been minutes away from killing the New York Shade and all of us with it.
“No, you’re not,” Moira said, her eyes filled with tears. “This is worse than death, Dam. For fuck’s sake, you can’t be s
erious. This is ridiculous.”
“I know what I’m doing, my deranged elf. I’m going to be okay. We all are,” I promised her.
“I get it,” John said, scratching his cheek, looking at the ground. He’d turned his back to the sun because he never could stand it on his face. Zane didn’t mind it at all, though. He looked miserable.
They all did, even though they’d had time to go back home and clean up—even Charlie McGaff, the young witch. She stood behind Moira and kept staring at the ground intently, never saying a word. She was still afraid of me, but she wouldn’t need to be for long now.
“Me, too. That doesn’t mean I like it,” Emanuel said. He looked the worst of all of them, raw scars zigzagging his face. Those were going to take some time to heal, but at least he wasn’t in pain. After the night we’d had, we were all lucky to be alive. Lucky that Sinea was… Sinea. Impulsive, and stubborn, and determined unlike anybody I’d ever known before. It was incredible how she kept fascinating me all the time, even now when I thought I had a good understanding of who she was. I wondered if it would ever end.
“You don’t have to like it,” I told Emanuel. “I will see you in a bit.”
They all shook my hand—except for Charlie, who only nodded, then moved down the street. Moira laced her arm in mine and walked with me a few buildings down Vester Street.
The sky was now dark. The Shade had already repaired itself. There were people all over the street, going about their business like the night before hadn’t happened at all. Life was like that. It just kept going without care of what it left behind or the feelings of the people who lived in it.
Just the thought of what could have happened last night made my canines turn sharp. I took in a deep breath, hoping the scents would distract me. It didn’t matter what could have happened. It mattered that it hadn’t.
When I arranged the meeting with Adams, it didn’t occur to me for a single second that his intent would be to kill the Shade altogether. It had been done before—twice, by Noratis, the last known Level Five supernatural until Sinea. Adams was not a Level Five, only a Prime, but he’d somehow managed to find or make that stone and suck the magic straight out of the Shade, after it had rendered it defenseless by knocking us all out first. Without magic, the Shade couldn’t do anything to stop Adams. I’d underestimated the Uprising since the beginning, and it had been a mistake I didn’t intend to make again.
“Why are you doing this, Dam?” Moira said when we stopped in front of the offices of the people who were in charge of the Sacri Guild. I’d been here before, plenty of times. The last time, I’d gotten my freedom back.
“You know why,” I said to Moira and grabbed her in my arms. She was crying and her every tear stabbed me like a silver blade. I hated seeing her sad.
“I don’t. It’s not worth it—you know it. It’s too much,” she insisted.
I smiled and kissed the top of her head before I leaned away. “It is worth it. Sinea is to me what the sun is to you. I no longer want to simply exist, deranged elf. I want to live, and I can’t live if she’s not here.” Nor did I want to, if I could.
Her eyes squeezed shut. “You’re hopeless, oh mighty Typhon. I wish I could smack that thought out of your head.”
“What are you worried about, Moira? You know I’ll still be here whenever you need me, right?” No matter what for, or when, I would always be here when she needed me.
“I’m not worried about me, I’m worried about you. I don’t want you to suffer, Dam.” She grabbed me by my ruined shirt and shook me.
I laughed. “Then you should be insisting I do this.”
“What if you regret it?”
I was afraid she would ask that. The truth to that question was that I didn’t know. I had been here before, though last time Moira hadn’t, and I hadn’t thought about regrets at all. Now, I did. But it still made no difference.
“Then I’ll regret it.” That wasn’t reason enough to stop me today.
Moira sighed and rested her head on my chest. “I hate to see you go.”
“But I’ll be back. You know I will.”
“I know.” She hugged me once more. “Come back to the penthouse when you’re done. We’ll have a drink.”
“I will.”
When Moira left, I stayed in front of the building for a little while longer, just looking at it. With the night, my strength had come back, but I still felt weak. I needed to feed. The Guild had served me cold blood in a mug while they’d interrogated me, only because they didn’t want to take any chances in case the monster came out and killed them all in a fit of hunger. It wasn’t enough—I’d been stabbed and attacked with magic more times than I could count. The evidence was with my clothes—the Guild took my armor for tests of magic residue, but I still had my pants and shirt. There was no time to go change now. That is why I’d called for a meeting with Gerald Flinn and his colleagues right after I’d been let out of the interrogation room.
I hadn’t lied to the Guild, not about everything. I’d told them that I was meeting Adams for a drink, which they already knew since they’d seen me meet Adams in Nova Scotia once. Then, I’d told them that we were all knocked out, and that when I woke up, I fought Adams along with everybody else. There had been questions—about my armor, for one—but it didn’t matter. It wouldn’t matter after I was done here, anyway.
Taking another breath out of habit, I ignored the hunger for blood and walked to the entrance of the building. There were procedures—soldiers who checked my person for weapons and two confirmations from the information desk that I did, in fact, have a meeting arranged here.
My patience was being tested, but five minutes later, I took the stairs to the second floor with three Guild soldiers behind my back, watching my every movement. One of them was a Prime sorcerer, but the other two were Level Twos. Not that it mattered, but I was used to gathering information about my surroundings.
The entire building was so crowded with offices that it left too little space for corridors. They were narrow and they almost made me feel claustrophobic, especially when the soldier right behind me walked so close, I could feel his breath on the back of my neck. I could clearly hear the blood rushing in his veins, and it was an unwanted distraction. Luckily, we didn’t have to walk down the corridor that long.
“In here,” the soldier said when we reached the third door to the right. There were seven in total around me, and thirteen hearts beating, other than my entourage. I stopped by the door, knocked, and walked in before anybody answered.
Gerald Flinn was standing by the only window in the square room, his hands tucked in the pockets of his pressed pants. He was a short guy, barely five foot four, with grey hair and dark eyes that made him look a bit more intelligent than he actually was. His grandfather, the man I’d made my first deal with, had had the same eyes.
But Flinn wasn’t alone. There were two other men in there with him, and I recognized both of them—they were members of the Guild committee. There were seven of them in the committee in total, and the men sitting on the two armchairs on the other side of the room were Mathias Ulrich and Steven Connelly.
Ulrich was a Prime wizard, not as strong as Alexander Adams had been, but he came close from what I’d heard. Connelly’s nature was a bit of a mystery. He claimed he was a wizard, too, but I’d heard rumors that he had celestial blood in him, which was possibly the reason why he didn’t age. He was seventy-four, if the information I’d read about him was correct, and he looked to be in his late thirties. There was no spell about him that I could feel, not like with Adams. Only the muddy brown of his eyes gave away his true age because seventy-year-old wizards would look in their late fifties at best—like Flinn.
“Gentlemen,” I said with a nod, not bothering to shake their hands. It was for their own good—I didn’t want to tempt myself. “Thank you for meeting with me.”
“Please, Mr. Reed,” Ulrich said, waving his hand at the armchair across from them. It wasn’t as far away from
them as I’d have liked, and there would be nothing between us. The room itself was far too small, but it was better than Flinn’s office, with the barred window and the huge desk. This one was a bit less crowded, and the window was clear. Flinn stayed by it, and I could smell the fear on his skin like he was right in front of me.
I sat down because I had the feeling that the conversation was going to be enough to help me maintain my focus.
“I believe you already know why I called you here,” I said, leaning back in the chair, focused on not breathing in, for now.
“We can make an educated guess, can’t we?” said Connelly, a tone of mock in his voice while he smiled.
“I did hear you were smart men,” I said and offered him a smile of my own. His vanished. “I’m sure you’ve already heard everything I had to say about last night’s…incident.” Their brows shot up and they both fidgeted in their seats. It made me wonder if maybe these two men were in it with Alexander Adams. Not that it mattered now, anyway.
“Yes, that was rather unfortunate,” Ulrich said. “I guess we’re all lucky you and those werewolves from the Conti Pack just happened to be there.”
“I didn’t happen to be there. I went there to meet Adams, which I’m sure you already knew—just like you did the first time I met with him.” They didn’t even try to deny that they’d tailed me, which made the whole thing a lot easier. “We’ve worked together before. Not with you two directly, but I’ve worked with the Guild. Both of you know that I’ve always kept my end of the deal, as per the contract.”
“We know,” Ulrich said with a flinch. “And we do appreciate everything you’ve done for us, but—”
“Not for you, or for the Guild. I did it because I had no choice.” I did it because as big a monster as I was, there were always bigger ones out there—hungrier, more violent, pure evil.
“But you do now,” Connelly said, crossing his legs, his fingers wrapped around his chin as he looked at me. “You have a choice now because we’ve held our end of the deal, too—as per the contract.”
