The Shattered Dark sr-2

by Sandy Williams

  “Really sorry,” I say, hopping from foot to foot as I back away. The apology doesn’t help. Her chin quivers.

  I spin around and take off before she can point me out to her parents. Just as I’m merging with the crowd on the Strip, sobs ring out behind me. I feel like crap for making the girl cry, but I didn’t have a choice. I have to get Sosch out of here.

  And I have to find some shade.

  I refrain from slinging the pillowcase over my shoulder. Instead, I hook my arm under Sosch’s belly and keep him pressed to my side, making sure the pillowcase stays open so he can breathe. I don’t know what I’m going to do with him. I can’t take him back inside the hotel.

  The concrete isn’t so bad in the middle of the crowd. So long as no one steps on my foot, I might be okay.

  At least, that’s what I think until my skin prickles. I look over my shoulder, searching for the chaos luster I think I saw leap across someone’s hand. There’s a group of girls wearing flashing crowns walking the other way. The battery-powered blue lights are bright even under the blazing sun. Maybe my brain interpreted those as a fae’s edarratae?

  Someone runs into my shoulder, wrenching it hard. I ball my hand into a fist as the guy turns toward me.

  “Sorry,” the human slurs, drunk even though it’s not even noon yet. His friends laugh as they guide him away.

  Yeah. I’m definitely paranoid.

  I try to force myself to relax as I continue on, but my skin is still crawling. It’s not a feeling I get often in my world, and it’s ridiculous to have it here, in the midst of all the flashing lights, the billboards, the humans with all their electronic devices. A fae’s edarratae would be going crazy. They’d be easy to see. And that’s why Shane and I are staying here, in a hotel on the Strip. Aside from the rebels dropping us off or picking us up, it should be fae-free.

  My feet freaking hurt, but I keep going, making my way toward the south end of the Strip. The only place I can think of to go is to the gate. It’s on a stretch of road that connects the city of Vegas to Lake Las Vegas. It’s relatively rural, and since kimkis are attracted to gates, there’s a chance Sosch might stay there for a while.

  I can get there by bus, but the stop I need is ten blocks east of Las Vegas Avenue. It’ll take twenty minutes to get there. As I turn down a side road, I readjust Sosch on my hip. I swear he’s fallen asleep, and somehow, he’s made himself weigh twice as much as usual.

  Only a handful of locals and a few tourists who’ve wandered away from the Strip share the sidewalk with me. With the smaller crowd, it’s easy to see that no one—no fae at least—is following me. After checking over my shoulder for the tenth time, my anxiety level finally lowers. Exactly one second after that, I hear the shrrip of a fissure opening behind me. Before I’m able to turn, I’m yanked into an alley.

  I drop Sosch as I twist toward my attacker, swinging a fist at…

  “Lorn,” I grind out when I recognize the impeccably dressed fae plucking my fist from the air.

  “McKenzie,” Lorn returns with a smile. That smile disappears when an obviously pissed-off Sosch shoots out of the pillowcase, wraps himself around Lorn’s left leg, then bites him just above the knee.

  “Ahg. Off!” Lorn snaps in Fae, kicking out with his leg. Sosch thuds against a grimy door.

  “Hey!” I glare at Lorn as I scoop the kimki up in my arms. “What are you—”

  I stop because we’re not the only people in this alley. A human is leaning against the wall, smoking a cigarette.

  “What’s that?” he asks, eyeing Sosch, as the kimki climbs up onto my shoulders.

  “Otter,” I mutter.

  Lorn laughs. I clench my teeth together, adding Lorn’s name to the list of people I’m going to kill.

  EIGHT

  ONCE THE HUMAN is out of sight, Lorn breaks into a shop that’s either gone bankrupt and was shut down or it’s just been purchased and is being renovated. There are dozens of retail spaces in a similar stage of transition scattered all over the city. In this one, huge sheets of white plastic cover the glass windows, and the walls are missing Sheetrock. Empty clothing racks are tangled one on top of the other in the back corner, and the store’s checkout counter is crooked and covered in an even thicker layer of sawdust than what’s on the floor.

  I set Sosch down. He makes a beeline for a stack of collapsed cardboard boxes, leaving a trail of tiny footprints behind him.

  “What are you doing here?” I demand, when Lorn goes to the window. With one finger, he moves aside the plastic so he can peek out. I haven’t seen Lorn since he fissured me to Vegas just over two weeks ago. He set me up in the hotel room and hasn’t been back since.

  “I came to see you, of course,” he says, letting the plastic fall back into place.

  “You could see me at the suite.”

  “I did see you,” he says, scanning the shop. His lips pinch together as if the disorder and dinginess disgust him. Heaven forbid he get a smudge on his pristine white shirt. He’s wearing it under a brown vest, which I think is made from jaedric, though it’s not as thick as the jaedric in a fae’s armor. The scabbard holding his sword on his left hip is darker than the vest; so is the messenger-style satchel that’s slung over his shoulder. “I saw you right before the metal doors locked you inside the…the moving box.”

  “Elevator,” I say. He saw me get into the elevator. He must have fissured into the suite when I was in the hallway; I was just too distracted chasing after Sosch to notice. “What do you want, Lorn?”

  He manages to look offended. “What makes you think I want anything? Maybe I just want to visit with my favorite shadow-reader.”

  I meet his eyes, wait. Everything is a game to Lorn. The problem is, you never know if you’re competing with him or against him, especially now. He has—had—a life-bond with Kelia. Lena and Aren think that’s the only reason he provided them with supplies and information while they fought against the king, but I’m not so sure about that. I think Kelia was more of a convenient excuse for him to help them. He’s more involved with the rebels than he has to be. In fact, after Sethan was killed, he was the first person to speak up and suggest that making Lena queen wasn’t a bad idea.

  When he doesn’t give up the charade and tell me why he’s really here, I say, “Take Sosch back to the Realm. It’s not safe for him to be here.”

  I make my way back to the door to the alley. It has a window in it. I didn’t realize it before because it’s covered in such a thick layer of grime. I reach for the handle.

  “I need you to shadow-read, McKenzie,” Lorn finally says.

  I look over my shoulder. “You came to my world just to ask me that? You could have found me in the palace.”

  “I could have,” he agrees, clasping his hands behind his back as he walks to the checkout counter. “But Lena and I have had a…disagreement. I’m not welcome in the palace at the moment.”

  That doesn’t surprise me at all. Lorn hasn’t exactly been forthcoming with information since the rebels took over the capital.

  “What did you do?” I ask.

  “It’s insignificant,” he says with a dismissive wave of his hand. “How long will it take you to get to the gate?”

  “I haven’t agreed to help you yet,” I say, turning to face him fully. I shouldn’t even consider it. I already have too many responsibilities: a friend I need to find, a watch rotation I shouldn’t skip out on, and a job I need to finish applying for. I don’t have time to shadow-read for Lorn.

  “You will.” The corner of his mouth slants up into a smug smile that gets under my skin.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I can’t help you.”

  “Oh, I think you can.” He sounds so pleased with himself that I’m about to turn and leave just to spite him, but before I do, he adds, “Rumor has it a friend of yours is missing.”

  My blood runs cold. He knows about Paige? How? I only learned she was missing yesterday.

  “You know where she is,” I say.
>
  His smile widens. “I’ll give you her location after you shadow-read for me.”

  I should have contacted him as soon as I learned Paige was missing. He has resources—spies, if I want to be accurate—everywhere. He probably knows more about what’s going on in the Realm than Lena does, but still, I’m not sure if making a deal with him is the wisest thing to do, not without consulting Aren first.

  “Must I remind you that you owe me?” A bolt of blue lightning slashes across his face, drawing attention to the circles under his eyes. They’re not dark—I didn’t notice them before the chaos luster—but they don’t belong there. He’s tired, and even though there isn’t any active tech in this room, I’m sure it’s not the most comfortable place for a fae. He probably has one hell of a headache.

  “I’m aware of that,” I say, staring at the plastic-covered window. Lorn saved my life in a tavern in Belecha, and he paid for the Vegas suite until Shane took over the bill a few days ago. The high nobles haven’t allowed Lena access to the palace’s treasury, and Shane has an extremely large rainy-day fund because he demanded a ridiculous amount of money from the king for his services. I hate being in anyone’s debt, so the opportunity to make things even with Lorn is tempting. Plus, to some degree, I trust him. He acts like he’s concerned only about information and profit, but he cared about Kelia. Her death and the loss of the life-bond have affected him more than he lets on.

  I study Lorn. No one’s been forthcoming with the details of that bond. As far as I know, Kelia and Lorn never loved each other. They bonded because they were a good match, and the connection made their magic stronger. Now that she’s dead…?

  I want to help Lorn. It’ll probably push my meeting with Jenkins to tomorrow, since I’m on the watch rotation at the palace later, but he won’t leave the office until 5 P.M. I’ll have all day to get there.

  And I need to find Paige. If Lorn knows where she is, I have to help him.

  “Who do you want me to track?” I ask, hoping this isn’t a mistake.

  He smiles. “Her name is Aylen. She’s an associate of an associate.”

  “What do you want with her?”

  “Just to talk,” he says smoothly. “I’ll meet you at the gate, shadow-reader.”

  “Wait,” I say, as he opens a fissure. “We only have an agreement if you take Sosch with you.”

  “Sosch?” He stares at the kimki, who’s sniffing at an exposed pipe in the wall.

  “I can’t keep carrying him through the city.”

  “He’s not my kimki.”

  “He’s not mine, either.”

  Lorn raises an eyebrow. “Really? Then why did you chase after him?”

  I scowl back. “Just take him with you, Lorn.”

  “He’s free to use my fissure if he wants to leave,” he says, opening a slash of light between him and Sosch.

  Sosch glances at Lorn, then returns to sniffing the pipe. I roll my eyes as I walk to the kimki. His fur turns silver when I pick him up, but by the time I place him in Lorn’s arms, he’s stark white again. I don’t think he’s too pleased with this arrangement, either.

  “Take him with you,” I say again, ignoring Lorn’s overly dramatic sigh.

  It takes more than an hour to get to the gate. That’s mainly because I took a detour to buy a pair of socks and sneakers from Payless. I put them on after scrubbing my feet in the restroom sink, but they’re still sore and a little black from walking on the hot concrete.

  The bus driver questions me when I ask him to stop. He’s the third driver this week I’ve had to convince to drop me off here, a good distance off the bus’s actual route. We’re twenty minutes outside the city, and there’s not a building in sight. That works for me, though. I hate trying to fissure when humans are around.

  After the bus leaves, I step off the road. The ground is all dirt and dead grass. It crunches under my feet, but a few dozen yards away, the landscape turns green along the banks of a stream. Lorn is there, sitting with his eyes closed and his back against a tree. He looks like he has all the time in the world to take a nap. So does Sosch. The kimki’s sunbathing in the blurred atmosphere that marks the gate’s location.

  “The idea was for you to take Sosch back to the Realm.”

  Lorn cracks open an eye. “Took your time getting here, didn’t you?”

  “I don’t want Sosch with us when I shadow-read.”

  “He’s perfectly happy where he is,” Lorn says. That’s true. The kimki hasn’t so much as budged since I got off the bus.

  “He doesn’t belong on Earth.” It’s unlikely a human will stumble across him out here, but he’s stuck in this world until a fae opens a fissure close enough for him to scurry into.

  “If he doesn’t use my fissure this time, I’ll send someone to pick him up. Here.” He hands me an Earth-made sketchbook. I wish I had mine with me, but it’s stuffed inside my suitcase back at my old apartment. This one looks like it belongs to another shadow-reader. The first half already has maps drawn in it. At least, I’m assuming they’re maps. I can’t decipher them, so I have no idea what the lines and scribbles mean. Whoever drew it would know, though.

  “Whose is this?” I ask, but as I turn another page, I know. Kelia stares back at me. Unlike me, Naito can actually draw. He’s made his fae lover look delicate. Her hair is long and loose, shaded in with the edge of a pencil, and her eyes are soft and mesmerizing. Somehow, he’s managed to capture her otherness on the page.

  I close the sketchbook and hand it back to Lorn. “I don’t feel right using this.”

  “You can rip out the pages you use,” he says. “After that, I want you to return it to Naito.”

  “You can return it to him.”

  He still doesn’t take it. “I did mention I’ve been banned from the palace, didn’t I?”

  “Lorn…” I fade off, fingering the sketchbook’s worn cover. Naito might appreciate having it back. It’s actually a pretty sweet gesture.

  “He won’t mind,” Lorn says, standing. He pulls at his cuffs to straighten the barely there wrinkles in his sleeves, then he reaches into his pocket and hands me an anchor-stone. It’s smooth and the color of snow-white quartz.

  “Where will this take us?” I ask. The stone is warm, a sign that it’s been imprinted with a location.

  “Worried I’ll abandon you in the Realm, miles away from a gate?”

  “Pretty much. Yes.” I’m not up for another six-hour walk through a forest, and tomorrow is Friday. I have to have my driver’s license and Social Security card turned in to Jenkins by then.

  “Fortunately for you, the city we’re traveling to does have a gate.” He dips his hand into the stream. The water pours between his fingers before it turns into a strip of white light. He holds out his other hand to me.

  “Where, Lorn?” I’m not stepping into the In-Between until I know.

  “Nashville,” he relents.

  “Tennessee?”

  He tilts his head to the side. “Ten of what?”

  “Never mind,” I mutter. There’s a gate in Nashville, so I’ll assume that’s where we’re going.

  After I take Lorn’s hand, he adds, “My apologies in advance.”

  I stiffen, but he pulls me into the fissure before I have a chance to back out. The cold air hits me, freezing my breath in my lungs. That’s not unusual, but the sharp pain in my chest is, and it doesn’t disappear when I stumble out of the light, hitting the ground hard.

  Lorn’s on his knees beside me. Chaos lusters flash erratically over his clenched jaw. He’s having just as difficult a time trying to breathe as I am, and I realize that this is the real reason he didn’t take Sosch to the Realm. It’s difficult for him, working any magic. If he fissured back and forth between his world and mine, he might not have had enough energy left to take me through the In-Between.

  If I’d known just how weak he was, I might not have agreed to come. Most of the time, fissuring doesn’t affect me like this. As long as my escort isn’t over
ly tired or hurt, their magic shields them from the drain of passing through the In-Between. Lorn’s magic hasn’t shielded either of us.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, cough, then force myself to rise to my feet. I’m light-headed, and I notice the human standing a few paces in front of me only after the fuzzy black spots clear from my vision.

  “Did you…were you…” He looks down at my knee. My bleeding knee. My jeans are ripped. “Are you okay?”

  The man is holding a set of car keys in one hand, a brown paper bag that looks like it’s holding a bottle of alcohol in the other. He’s probably in his late thirties, a family man, and, if his black slacks and tucked-in white cotton shirt are any indication, he’s some kind of businessman.

  And he obviously saw me appear out of nowhere.

  “I’m good,” I say as lightheartedly as possible with a queasy stomach. “I just need to watch where I’m going. Tripped over my own feet.”

  I start walking before he can say anything else. I’m not about to give him a chance to ask what he wants to. If he’s like the handful of other humans who have seen me appear out of nowhere over the years, he’ll doubt what he saw. He’s probably shaking his head now, thinking he needs some sleep or to check his vision or something.

  “You could have warned me,” I hiss at Lorn, when he falls into step beside me. We’re on the back side of what appears to be a strip mall. Looking around, I think that one human might have been the only person who saw me. Most likely, the cars on the road to our left were driving too quickly to notice the girl stumbling into the parking lot.

  “I believe I did warn you, my dear,” Lorn says. I think he’s trying to keep his tone light, but he doesn’t succeed.

  “You could have been more specific.” I’m still feeling unbalanced, but at least the queasiness is fading, and my chest doesn’t feel quite so tight. “And was this your idea of a safe place to fissure?”

  “It’s the only location I have memorized aside from the store,” he says. Then he lengthens his stride. “Now, hurry, please. We might have already missed our opportunity today, thanks to your delays.”