Dead City

by Debbie Cassidy

  “Echo … what did you do?”

  I turned my head to press my lips to his ear. “I realized I’m in love with you. I realized I can’t lose you.”

  He pulled back and cupped my face. “You … You love me?”

  I did. It was in the skip of my pulse and the hard thump of my heart and the heat of my tears. It was in every breath that mingled with his.

  He brushed his nose against mine. “Oh, thank God, because I love you too, but … But I think I need to pass out for a bit now, okay?”

  He slipped from my grasp. His brand-new, powerful wings retracted as if on cue, and then he hit the bed, unconscious.

  The sensation of being watched prickled my scalp, and I looked across the room to find Azren and Wilomena standing in the doorway.

  “I told you,” Azren said. “Our Micha has finally found his kindred.”

  Chapter 12

  While Micha slept in the med bay, recovering his strength, Azren and Wilomena served a strong herbal tea in a kitchen hewn from rock. The table was made of stone, and the chairs were thick oak. Shelves lined the walls and pretty plates with floral patterns were displayed on them.

  The couple sat opposite me, and Azren placed a teapot between us and then proceeded to pour out the tea.

  This was the first time I’d seen an actual teapot in real life, and the cups were dainty things with flowers painted on them. Watching Azren, the Shedim, sip from one was almost comical, not that I’d dare laugh. He looked like he could burn me to cinder with a single glance.

  Wilomena took a sip of her tea and put her cup on the table, fingers playing with the handle. “Micha was always different from my other children. With me being half Shedim and half Draconi, and Azren being pure Shedim, we expected him to have mainly Shedim traits, but Micha was born with wings. Delicate things that we had to keep bound at all times. They got stronger as he grew; he learned to detract them and cloak himself quickly. But those wings were his weakness. Problem was, it was hard to tell if he’d hurt his wings because Micha didn’t feel pain, and as a baby, a soothing touch wouldn’t help because he couldn’t feel it; we had to hold him super tight for him to gain comfort from the pressure.”

  “He can’t feel anything?” That didn’t make sense. “I’ve touched him on more than one occasion, and unless he’s a really good actor, I’m sure he felt me.”

  “I’m sure he did too,” Azren said.

  Huh? I was so confused.

  “The Draconi and Shedim are born with a soul mate,” Azren continued. “The Shedim call them kindred, and the Draconi call them scalemates. For the Shedim, these are life partners, but for the Draconi, they aren’t always lovers. Most of the time a Draconi scalemate will end up being a close friend. Someone who will share your emotions, someone who will understand you and affect you in unique ways.”

  “Micha was so different,” Wilomena said. “We didn’t know if he would experience having a kindred. We weren’t sure there was a soul mate out there for him.”

  “We think you’re his kindred,” Azren said bluntly.

  Yes. The word entered my head like a bullet. It felt right. It felt true. We’d connected from the start, and now … Now I couldn’t imagine life without him.

  “Echo, I know this must be overwhelming for you,” Azren continued. “But—”

  “No. It’s fine. I think … I think you’re right.”

  Wilomena and Azren exchanged looks.

  “I can’t imagine being without him.” My vision blurred, and I blinked back the tears, feeling stupid for being so emotional right now.

  In the back of my mind, a voice taunted me with the question of whether my arcana could have saved Tris. If I’d understood it, if I’d tried harder … if, if, if. Could I have saved her? The question would haunt me for the rest of my life because it was obvious now that my power could heal, and I’d failed to save my best friend. That guilt would be my silent burden to carry. My penance.

  I was determined to learn how my power worked. There would be no more mistakes. “I don’t understand how the power came back online. I was tapped out.”

  “Maybe it doesn’t work the way we thought it does,” Deacon said, walking into the room. He looked clean and groomed, no sign that he’d ever been in a fight for his life. How the heck did he do it? “Maybe it was you that needed to recharge internally,” Deacon continued. “You stopped using the arcana for an hour, and it had a chance to recharge.”

  “I didn’t go anywhere near a crystal.”

  “Maybe you are the crystal.” Deacon shrugged. “The Arcana of long ago were able to draw arcana from the atmosphere like the crystal does for us today.”

  “But then why did I run out of power?”

  “You were tired,” Wilomena said. “Noir …” She stopped and blinked, as if surprised by the name that had fallen from her lips, but then she smiled fondly. “Noir, one of Micha’s fathers, was an Arcana. He’d get tired and have to take breaks to recharge before he was able to use arcana. And then there was my ether kindred who drew his power from the ether itself, but even he had to recharge his vessel. Noir was killed in the war, and Sebastian … he comes and goes every time a Draconi or Shedim soul falls.”

  Was this what the slender man had been talking about? The place beyond the ether. Was this Sebastian like a gatekeeper? A reaper for the Draconi and Shedim?

  Wilomena smiled. “It’s a lot to process, don’t worry too much about it.”

  I nodded. “No, I get it, but I’m not like those people. I’m human. Emory ran all the tests.”

  “Maybe it isn’t your body that’s changed,” Azren said. “Maybe it’s your soul.”

  Deacon was studying me speculatively. “Emory said you had memory loss after your fall. Maybe the answers to our questions are in your mind.”

  He wanted to read me, and maybe it was time. I needed to know what had happened to me to fully understand what I’d become. I nodded. “Fine. Do it.”

  He pulled out the chair next to me and turned it until it was facing me. “You might want to swivel round a little.”

  I adjusted my seat and sat back down. “This good?”

  He tugged on the cuffs of his shirt and nodded. “Now, close your eyes. Do not fight me. If you fight me, it will hurt.”

  Oh, crap. “Okay. Do I need to do anything else?”

  “It would help if you focus on the memory of just before you fell. We can take it from there.”

  I closed my eyes and flinched as his cool fingers touched my temple.

  “Relax, Echo. Let me in.” His voice was a seductive purr.

  I exhaled and cast my mind back to the day I’d cleaned the mirror above the chasm. I’d been on the hoverboard, almost at the center of the mirror, and then I’m there again with the hard wood of the hoverboard against my back. And even though I know this is a memory, that I can’t possibly be back there, it feels like the first time, except for the swirling precognitive nausea in the pit of my stomach. Something is about to—There, a dark shadow. Oh, shit. No. Not supposed to see this. Not supposed to know about Hunter. How could I have forgotten he was there? I try to pinch off the memory, but pain lances through me.

  Shit. I can’t stop it. I can’t prevent the conversation between Hunter and me from unfolding. I am a watcher and a participant.

  “Crap.”

  “Yes, you do look rough,” Hunter drawls. “You know, a hairbrush isn’t an offensive weapon. You should use one sometime.”

  “Go away, I’m working.”

  “I can see that. Walt would have been done by now.”

  “Let me guess, the purpose of your existence is to chip away at my ego every chance you get, right?”

  “No, that’s just a hobby.”

  “So, what have you been up to today?”

  “Oh, this and that.”

  “Evasive as usual.”

  “I do know that an emissary has arrived from the Keep. He’ll be helping to set up the Run.”

  The conversation pl
ays out just as I remember it.

  “Two deaths this month,” Hunter says. “The orb is about full.”

  “Shut up.” I can sense my annoyance as a peripheral emotion.

  “It makes sense for the daughter of the previous orb carrier to take up the mantle.”

  “Not if she doesn’t intend to win the Run,” I snap back.

  “What?” There is shock in his tone.

  “You heard me, now get lost.”

  “You intend to fail?”

  I’m ignoring him now, wiping at the mirror, and then he starts to laugh.

  “Oh, oh, this is rich. This is good. And right above the crystal too. Did you hear that? Did you hear what she said?”

  “You know, gratitude should come with a shelf life,” I snap. “I should—”

  The hoverboard drops a half a meter, and even though this isn’t real, my heart leaps into my mouth because I know what’s coming, I know it, and in a moment I’ll remember it.

  “Echo, get out of here,” Hunter says.

  “What?”

  “Echo, you need to—”

  The hoverboard drops, and I watch myself suspended in mid-air for a moment, and then I’m hurtling down. I’m going to crash. I’m going to die, but the emerald is so bright, so fucking bright that I’m momentarily distracted from my fate, and then a voice filled the chasm. It fills my mind.

  Fight. Made to do it. Meant to do it. Must fight. Fight.

  I make impact with a series of cracks. There is pain, and I am in my body, in the shattered body looking up into the emerald, and then I’m rising into the green. It surrounds me, beautiful in its glittering intensity.

  “Echo?”

  Oh, God. Hunter. He’s here. I see him. How could I have forgotten this? He’s an inky black shadow pushing out of the green to reach for me. There is shock in his silver eyes, so eerie in his obsidian face. He has a mischievous face and a mouth made for sarcasm.

  I watch myself reach for him and then he is shaking his head. “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t look down.”

  I look down. The mist parts, and I see myself. Broken, twitching, sightless.

  Fight. Time to wake up.

  The emerald haze whirls around my broken body, and then it rushes up in an angry jet to meet my floating form.

  The memory shut off, and I was back in the Keep, back in my seat with Deacon’s shocked face staring back at me. I’d almost died. I’d almost died, and I’d seen Hunter, really seen him, and then … the arcana had gone into me, not my body but my soul.

  “You were right,” Deacon said to Azren. “The arcana has somehow remade her soul. It’s changed her on a spiritual level.”

  “But why?” Wilomena asked. “Why would it do that?”

  Deacon was silent for a long beat. “Maybe it was meant to be.”

  “Deacon?” Wilomena pressed. “What did you see?”

  Hunter … He’d seen Hunter.

  Deacon pushed back his chair and stood. “I saw Echo fall to the bottom of the chasm. I saw her break, and I watched her rise out of her body and be remade by the arcana.” He locked gazes with me. “That’s all.”

  He’d seen Hunter, but he was keeping quiet about it. Why?

  Wilomena ran a hand over her face. “Well, at least we know why you can do what you can do.”

  Deacon placed a hand on my shoulder. “Come, you should get some rest. It’s been a long night, and it will be dawn soon. We’ve already contacted the Hive and informed them what happened, and we’re expected back first thing tomorrow.”

  “What about Micha?” I looked to Azren and Wilomena.

  “I’m sure he’ll find you as soon as he’s recovered fully,” Wilomena said. “You’re his kindred, and he’ll want to be by your side.”

  Azren and Wilomena exchanged a soft look that made me ache to see Micha again. But Deacon had his hand on my elbow and was gently but firmly urging me up out of my seat.

  There was a conversation coming, and I wasn’t sure it would be a pleasant one.

  Chapter 13

  Deacon led me through the corridors with confidence—he obviously knew his way around the Keep—and then he was ushering me into a bedchamber and shutting the door.

  He turned to me, his expression serious. “How long has this Hunter been speaking to you?”

  Oh, shit. “He saved my life when the units collapsed in Chamber H. He saved Bry and Gem. He’s been hanging around ever since.”

  “And you didn’t think to report him?”

  “Of course I did. I decided against it. He saved my life. I owe him.”

  Deacon pinched the bridge of his nose. “Have you any idea what he is? Do you know how dangerous he is?”

  “No. Because despite wishing me dead every time he sees me, he hasn’t actually done me any harm, or anyone else for that matter. He just …”

  “Just what.”

  “He’s stuck, okay. He can’t leave the Hive.”

  Deacon’s eyes narrowed. “He can’t leave the Hive, because if he did, Genesis would find him and devour him. Your friend is a shade.”

  “A what?”

  He made a sound of exasperation and then his shoulders sagged. “I forget how young you are, and how little you truly know about the world before the war. Shades were like the Shedim and the Draconi, they entered our world through a tear in the fabric of our reality. When they first came, they were led by a tyrant who wanted revenge against the winged – the Black Wings and White Wings.”

  “White Wings?”

  “Yes. Well, we don’t have many of those anymore, so I’m not surprised you haven’t heard of them. But the shades … they had to take human hosts to really do some damage.”

  “So, they’re bad guys?”

  “They were until events led to them joining us in the war. You see, shades are essentially souls that don’t have bodies of their own, and you can imagine what a feast Genesis had with them.”

  “So, Hunter’s in hiding. How is he dangerous? He hasn’t tried taking anyone as a host.”

  “He’s a beacon to Genesis. If the wards were to weaken, he would be like a homing device calling Genesis to us.”

  “I don’t know. I think if he could, he’d leave. I think … I think it’s me he’s stuck to.” I winced. “It sounds stupid, but certain stuff he’s said, and things he can’t say, make me think he’s under some kind of binding and only my death can set him free.”

  Deacon’s gaze was flitting back and forth now as he made connections I didn’t understand.

  He nodded slowly. “You’ll arrange for him to speak to me when we get back. We’ll take it from there.”

  Oh, crap. Hunter was not going to like this.

  He waved a hand toward the bed. “You can sleep here. It saves having to ask someone to make up a new room.”

  I looked at the double bed. “Here. In your room?”

  He walked over to the armchair in the corner and lowered himself into it. “I don’t tend to sleep much anyway.”

  He wanted me to share the room with him?

  “Echo? Is there a problem?”

  He sounded so cool and unaffected, and I was being an idiot. “No. Nothing.”

  He rose from the chair. “I’m going to see if I can find some reading material. There must be a book lying around this mountain somewhere.”

  He left the room, and I sagged onto the bed, suddenly bone-weary. Damn, the mattress was comfy. Now to take off my boots and slip under the covers …

  I awoke to the crackle of a fire and the sensation of warm blankets. Had I gotten into bed? No, I’d passed out on top of the sheets. I rolled onto my side to find Deacon seated in the armchair by the fire. He sat with his elbow resting on the arm of the chair and his cheek resting on his fist. His hair was undone and falling in a golden sheet that glowed in the firelight, and a book was open on his lap. He was so still, so perfectly unmoving, that he could have been a statue.

  Was he asleep? He said
he didn’t need sleep, but it looked like he may have been mistaken. Shit, that position couldn’t be comfortable. He’d tucked me in, the least I could do was make sure he was comfortable. There was a footstool by the wall and an extra blanket on the foot of the bed. Did Sanguinata feel the cold?

  I slipped from beneath the sheets, grabbed a blanket from the foot of the bed, and retrieved the footstool.

  His eyes were closed, his breath even. He looked like a porcelain doll, he looked … beautiful. Careful, so as not to jar him, I lifted his legs and propped them on the footstool, then laid the blanket on his lap and leaned in to tuck it in.

  His hand shot out to grab my arm, and his eyes snapped open, snaring me in their aqua depths. His pupils dilated as he looked at me, and it was obvious he hadn’t fully woken yet, and then he blinked, a slow, deliberate action that told me he was with me now.

  “Echo, what are you doing?”

  “I was tucking you in. You fell asleep.”

  Our faces were so close I could see the indigo ring in his irises and appreciate the thickness of his golden lashes. His scent was softer, alluring.

  “You should go back to bed.” His tone had dropped an octave. “It’s not safe for you to be this close to me right now.”

  But he hadn’t let go of my arm, and I had no urge to free myself. In fact, I wanted to climb onto his lap and lick his face. God, he smelled good.

  He closed his eyes, breathing through his mouth. “Echo, please. Go.” He released me. “Unless you’re offering to feed me?”

  His pupils were so dark and warm and inviting, and his mouth was red and rosy and ripe. I needed that mouth on mine. I needed to taste him. It had been so long … so long. Something shifted inside me, aching and yearning.

  Don’t fight.

  Oh, God. What was this? This wasn’t me.

  His eyes widened, and then he was shoving me away. “Echo. Snap out of it.”