by Sarah Fine
She stood high atop a hill. Sunbaked dirt stretched for miles in all directions except one. The full moon hung above the burned-out city of what she assumed was Pittsburgh, glinting off the shattered windows of skyscrapers. She didn’t want to know what she would see if she climbed out of her Scope and into the real world. Poverty, disease, violence . . . Eli’s toughness was proof enough that it was a rough place, rougher than anything she’d encountered in Boston.
“Eli?” she called, turning in place. “Are you here?” A trickle of dread snaked through her mind. Was she too late? Could he have become a Shade so fast? Was he out there somewhere, lost in the labyrinth of the city? Or had another Ferry come to claim him? Several Ferrys from the Boston area covered this part of the country. They could have felt the pull and beaten her here. She put her hand over her mouth to hold in her sob. She might never know what happened to him. She might never get to tell him how she felt.
“He’s not here, my dear,” said Moros as he materialized in front of her.
She took a wary step back. She could do nothing to Moros. He was too powerful. But she looked forward to the day the Keeper of Hell came for him. She wanted a front-row seat to that show. “You have serious balls coming here and talking to me,” she spat.
He nodded. “You have every right to be angry.”
“Anger doesn’t begin to describe what I feel toward you. Get away from me.” She turned to walk down the hill toward the edge of the city.
“We have business, Cacia,” he called after her. “There are much more pressing things to attend to in Boston.”
“Fuck off,” she replied.
“Eli is at the hospital.”
She stopped in her tracks and looked over her shoulder. “I know. Dec took his body to the morgue.”
“You will find more there than his body.” He inclined his head toward the city. “And you will find nothing down there but dozens of rabid Shades who will tear you limb from limb, steal your Scope, and use it to unleash themselves upon the hapless population of Pittsburgh—as if those poor souls need one more tribulation.”
Moros was right next to her now, the tremendous heat of him making her sweat even in the chill of the Veil. As much as she wanted to punch him, if he was right about Eli’s soul being somewhere else, she had no reason to be here. She felt mostly dead now. There was little left of her but a ragged, empty shell. And now that Eli was gone, it was like all the stitches had been ripped out of her heart. Like all the places he had healed after Moros’s touch had been torn open again.
“Why?” she whispered. “Why did you touch me when you had no intention of holding up your end of the deal? You were my father’s friend. Why would you do this to me?”
Moros sighed. “It was selfish of me to touch you. But I am a selfish creature, and it was a temptation I could not withstand. You feel things so intensely, and experiencing what was meant to be through your perspective was a rare delicacy. You had quite a future ahead of you.”
“Wise of you to use past tense.” Right now, it didn’t feel like she had any future worth living.
The smile on his face would have rendered him entirely angelic if it hadn’t been for the gleaming white tips of his fangs. “I am not the villain you think I am. I am responsible only for my failure to realize the danger, in my arrogant refusal to recognize that some of my Kere dared to work against me. But I did not Mark your man, Cacia, or any of the others. Nor am I a threat to Galena. Your father demanded to meet with me about her, but he never had the chance. I wasn’t sure which side he was on. When I touched you, I felt the depth of your respect for your father, the power of your conviction, the certainty that protecting Galena was the right thing to do.” He reached toward her, but then let his hand fall to his side again. “Even though I had already made my vow to protect Galena, you made me sure it was what I absolutely needed to do, no matter the cost.”
Cacy stared at him, agape. “But if Eli wasn’t Marked by you—”
“Yes. At least one of my Kere is rogue. I do not know who. Yet.” His voice was full of sorrow and rage at the same time.
“But you know the future. Can’t you see who it is?”
He shook his head. “I can only see the future of humans, Ferrys included. Most of them, at least.” Something both intrigued and regretful glinted in his gaze. “The Kere are not human. Not after they become mine. So when their futures interlace with humans’, it is too hazy for me to see. I have blind spots. And sometimes, the future completely disappears.”
He cleared his throat. “Something has happened. A fundamental departure from what has been fated. My sisters are enraged. They can feel it, like what is meant to be is being ripped away from what is. They sent me to Boston to find out why. But day by day and person by person, my future-sight is failing me. Your future disappeared completely a few minutes ago.” He smirked, and she wanted to punch him so badly she had to fold her arms over her chest and hold them there. “Right now, I am as blind to the future as you are, but I suggest we get back to Boston and face it, before it is stolen from us entirely.”
Her father’s words rang in her head: Protecting the future is more important than righting the wrongs of the past. If she wanted to honor Patrick Ferry, she would focus on protecting Galena, even if it meant working closely with the Lord of the Kere.
Without another word, she turned her back on Moros, pictured the hospital, and opened a portal to the alley beside the emergency department entrance. She left Moros standing in the wasteland by himself. It didn’t matter. He could be at the hospital, or anywhere else, for that matter, at the speed of thought. One of the dangerous powers of the Kere. Standing on the squashy gray pavement, she flipped the Scope and climbed into the inky, humid darkness.
When she stepped out of the alley, still wearing her blood-soaked clothing, Moros appeared next to her. She jerked to the side to avoid touching him. “If you’re worried about Galena, shouldn’t you be looking out for her?” she snapped.
He gave her a sad smile. “She is here.”
Cacy’s heart sank. She would have to comfort Galena now, when all she wanted to do was to collapse onto the floor and cry herself dry. She took a breath of briny, saturated air and stepped through the hospital doors. The sign for the morgue pointed to a side door that led to the temperature-controlled basement of the hospital, and Cacy began to walk toward it.
Moros hooked his long-fingered hand around her upper arm. “That’s not where he is.”
Cacy’s heart beat like it had been jump-started. “What?” Dec had pronounced him dead a few minutes after arriving at Rylan’s office. Could he have been wrong?
“I am quite certain we will find Eli among the living.” Moros gave her a sidelong glance as he strode through the waiting room. The bedraggled would-be patients sat huddled in plastic seats, all waiting their turn to see the doctor for various ailments. From the smell, at least a few of them had fallen into the canal. Luke the Ker lounged at the edge of the room, his arm around an emaciated young man delirious with fever. He sat up a little straighter when he saw Moros. The humans also seemed to sense that death was walking among them, and instinctively made way as Moros walked by, drawing their arms and legs into their seats like turtles pulling into their shells.
The emergency department doors slid open as Cacy and Moros approached. A nurse looked up as they walked by but didn’t stop them. Maybe she thought Cacy, covered head to toe in Eli’s blood, was in need of immediate care.
Dec was leaning against the wall outside Operating Theater Four, his head bowed, his arms folded over his chest. He raised his head and met Cacy’s eyes. He looked over his shoulder, into the room behind him, and back at her. Then he shoved himself off the wall and came toward her. “Galena’s with him,” he said slowly. “I’m sorry, Cacy. I had no idea this would happen.” He gave Moros a chilling look.
Her heart, now making up for lost time, b
eat with the rhythm and cadence of a jackhammer. “He’s alive?” she asked softly.
“In a manner of speaking,” said a low, rough voice, one she would recognize anywhere. She stepped around Dec to see Eli standing in the doorway, leaning against Galena. He was pale from loss of blood, and wearing a set of scrubs instead of his ruined street clothes. His head hung low, like he was too exhausted to hold it up.
Cacy rushed toward him, all her words deserting her, driven forward by pure emotion. He was alive! And somehow, he was up. He was walking. Had she just imagined how badly injured he’d been?
He raised his head.
In the second before he blinked and squeezed his eyes shut, his eyes flashed red.
She froze, everything dropping into place.
Eli was a Ker.
The man she loved was no longer a man. He was a killer.
And if he was a Ker, it meant something else, something she’d never considered.
To become a Ker, a person had to have taken a life. And usually more than one. Moros accepted no one into his ranks who was not already a killer. But Eli . . . he couldn’t be. How could this have happened?
Cacy put a hand to her stomach, feeling the loss of Eli all over again. As she stared, Eli kept his gaze focused on Galena, like Cacy wasn’t even there. “Come on,” he said to his sister. “I need to get out of here.”
Galena nodded, clinging to him tightly, and allowed him to lead her past Cacy, Dec, and Moros. As if they were invisible.
Cacy turned to watch him walk away. Her arms rose from her sides automatically, reaching for him, but her feet were rooted in place. She glanced to the side to see Dec staring after them as well. Moros chuckled. “I guess they need some family time.”
“You bastard,” Cacy and Dec both whispered at the same time.
“Ferrys,” Moros hissed, rounding on them. “Your self-righteous attitudes are entirely provincial and completely tiresome. By all rights you should be thanking me. Instead, you curse me. You would rather his body lie rotting in the basement morgue? I can arrange it if you like.” His eyes burned crimson.
“Eli isn’t a killer,” said Cacy softly. “I don’t understand how you did this to him.”
Moros threw back his head and laughed. “Cacia, you are very naive. Eli will be the perfect Ker. He not only has the instincts of a killer—he has proven himself quite decisively.”
Dec narrowed his eyes. “He was in the army. He was trained to be lethal in the line of duty. But that doesn’t make him a murderer.”
Moros nodded. “He was a soldier, but that’s not what I’m talking about.” He eyed Cacy. “He never told you about what happened to him and his sister?”
“Of course he did,” Cacy snapped. “He was nearly killed. He feels awful about what happened to Galena. I don’t think he’ll ever forgive himself for it.”
Dec’s brow furrowed as his gaze shifted back and forth between Moros and Cacy.
Moros leaned back against the wall. “That’s not where it ended, my dear. That was only the beginning.”
“What are you talking about?” But she had a feeling she knew. It had been written in the tension of his body, in the hard stare as he told her what had happened, in the barely caged wildness he carried inside.
Moros seemed to see the dawning realization in her eyes, because he smiled. “Yes. You understand. Eli has respect for life, but only when that life respects those he loves. In the year after the attack on Galena, Eli systematically stalked the men who raped her. He hunted them in the streets. He cornered them one at a time. And he murdered every single one.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Eli held Galena tight as they rode home on the bus. His chest was aching again. The look on Cacy’s face when she’d seen his eyes . . . it had said everything. Her expression had changed from joy to horror in a split second.
Now they were standing on opposite sides of a bottomless chasm. And this was how it would be. Forever. Unless it got worse, and the way his luck was going, it probably would.
By the time they reached the apartment, Galena was barely able to walk. Eli wasn’t surprised at her exhaustion. She’d been hysterical when she arrived at the hospital. Fortunately, he’d already been up and walking around. Dec had chased away the medical staff to give him space and time to pull himself together. Eli suspected there were significant bribes involved. He wasn’t sure why the Chief had helped him, but there was no denying he had.
Eli had bolted up from death, every cell on fire, his vision stained red. Dec had taken one look at him and knew exactly what had happened. He hadn’t let Galena into the room until Eli had managed to calm down. As he had, his eyes had gone back to normal, fading back to green as he watched in the mirror. But it was still right there, just behind his eyes and beneath his skin—the shrieking, rending rage, the desire to tear the world apart. He had barely held himself together as he walked away from Cacy.
In fact, he was barely holding himself together now. He hugged Galena and went to his room, where he stared out the window, thinking about how many things had changed in the last twenty-four hours. He’d started out the day with a fragile hope, which had been realized in the most powerful, ecstatic way. He’d thought that making love to Cacy was the first time of many. He’d been amazed at the strength of his feelings and at the intensity of hers.
But now he was a servant of death. A pawn in a game he didn’t even understand yet. A creature with powers he could not control. Capable of doing damage he wasn’t sure he could stomach. And the worst thing of all?
His feelings for Cacy hadn’t changed.
That hurt the most. He’d hoped he would see her differently now that Moros had taken possession of his soul, but one look at her had dashed his hopes.
The roar built inside him, starting at the very center of his gut and roiling up, rising before he could stop it, molten and deadly, uncontrollable and unrelenting. He clenched his fists and gritted his teeth. He closed his eyes, and all he saw was crimson. Then a sound forced his mouth open and threw his head back. It tore through him like it came from somewhere else, shattered him like he was paper-thin, shook him like an earthquake. It went on and on, a howl of pure, unadulterated fury and grief.
And then it fell silent.
He opened his eyes.
He was no longer in his room.
He was in the Veil, standing next to a fruit stand, on a street he recognized as one about two blocks from the EMS station. He flinched as he uncurled his fingers and saw sharp claws where his fingernails had once been. He ran his tongue gingerly over his canine teeth, which had elongated into fangs. Here in the Veil, he couldn’t hide the fact that he had become a monster.
Eli turned in place, wondering how on earth he’d gotten here. A fiery stab in his arm drew his eyes to his skin. As he watched, a name appeared, scrawled in spidery black letters. Yang Bao-Zhi. It meant nothing to him.
A face flashed in his mind, heavily lined, like someone had carved the years into the man’s flesh. Eli blinked. The image was detailed, etched deeply into his brain. Eli didn’t recognize him, but he had to find this Yang Bao-Zhi. The need was like a pull deep within his bones.
Eli sank into an alley and closed his eyes, feeling the tug of the real, warm, messy world as it yanked him from the Veil. People bustled by on the street in front of him. The road was choked with cars and AVs. Standing at the fruit cart in front of him was the old, stooped man he’d seen in his mind. The man handed a woman a bag of vegetables and held up a duct-taped portable scanner for her to swipe her phone over.
Eli’s feet carried him forward automatically. His hand stretched out in front of him before he could stop it. He had to touch this man. It was the only way to get his face out of his mind, the name off of his arm.
Yang Bao-Zhi blinked his heavy-lidded eyes and smiled as Eli stepped from the alley. His eyes widened slightly as E
li’s hand settled on his shoulder and squeezed for a moment before falling away. Eli looked down at the palm of his hand and was almost surprised it wasn’t glowing red-hot. The man hadn’t acted like he was burned, but—
Yang Bao-Zhi’s mouth opened in silent surprise. He clutched at his left arm and stumbled to the side, knocking several bunches of radishes to the ground. Eli lunged forward, instinctively trying to help, but someone grabbed him firmly from behind and yanked him back. He spun around to see Trevor looming in the alleyway.
“Don’t draw attention to yourself.” His hand gripped Eli’s arm tightly, and the world turned gray.
“Trevor? What are you doing here?” Eli gasped, looking up to see Trevor’s eyes glowing red.
“Helping you,” Trevor muttered as he pointed to Yang Bao-Zhi, whose shadowy form lay still on the sidewalk, a bright orange circle and X standing out starkly on his shoulder, right where Eli had touched him.
Eli’s stomach turned. “Did I do that?”
Trevor nodded. “You did your job.” His fingers closed around Eli’s wrist, and they both watched the name fade from Eli’s skin, leaving only an itchy tingling.
“Oh God,” whispered Eli. “That guy didn’t do anything wrong. Why was I supposed to kill him?”
Trevor shrugged. “The dude’s time had just come, man. That’s how it works. Looked pretty quick and painless to me. You must have some compassion in you.”
Eli winced as he stared at his victim’s sightless, glazed eyes. “This is what it’s like? This is what I have to do?”
“You’ll have more control over it as you get more experience. At first it just sort of happens. You didn’t come here on purpose, right?”
Eli looked around. “I was standing in my bedroom, and then I was here.”
Trevor smiled sadly. “Looks like Moros gave you an easy one to start off with. Some are harder. Especially the children.”
