Gus rubbed his hands together. “So what now? Assuming Brad can hotwire that old bus like he said he could, the thing still needs power. And I don’t think that girl will have enough to spark it.” He put his hand against his chin, rubbing it absently. “We might actually have too many goods,” he said to Ari. “We might have to be more selective.”
“I agree,” Ari said. “I didn’t expect there to be quite so many.” The hand that wasn’t holding onto Uriel lifted, jabbing at the air several times as he counted one, ticked off another, counted the next. I had the feeling he was picking out the people who would be taken for sale and the ones who would be drained here.
With my absence of light, I knew which group I would belong to if I didn’t say something.
“Take me with you,” I said.
Ari paused in his count, peering sideways at me.
Gus sucked his teeth. “Darlin’, you made your bed.” He ran his palm along his throat again. Several comrades snickered.
“Touch me, you bastard,” I said, putting my fists up, “and I’ll break your face.”
“Don’t waste your time,” Ari said to Gus. “She doesn’t have long anyway.”
“But she owes me, and I intend to see she pays.”
I heard Ari sigh as he turned to me. “I told you to keep quiet.”
“But I can help you.”
He plopped the boy onto the floor, pulling him against his legs with a sense of possession rather than protection. Uriel buried his face into the material of Ari’s knee. With an almost absent hand, Ari laid his palm on the boy’s head.
“How can you help?” he said.
“Yeah,” Gus said. “What the hell can a skinny little thing like you do for us? Can’t sell you. You don’t have any light. You’ve got that god-awful red hair. Your tits are full, but that’s only good for a quick roll in the back—”
“I have light,” I blurted.
I felt every brigand’s gaze swing to me.
“You have light?” Gus said, disbelief heavy in his voice.
He stepped forward, and I shuffled backward for every step he took until I found myself stepping on my air mattress. It gave way beneath my boot. I expected him to follow me to the wall, but he stopped a few feet away, Uriel trailed along by his hand.
“How much light?” Ari demanded.
I licked my lips. “Enough.”
Gus reached out and snagged me by the elbow. “Show me.”
My eyes flicked from Gus to Ari, and I noted a new look of interest on the tall man’s face. His fingers tangled in Uriel’s hair as he pulled him close again.
Most of the people I’d seen in the city wore their lumens against their skin or had an additional disc—like the hooker’s—that activated it remotely. Uriel’s had been pressed close against his heart. Gus’s was against his chest. It wasn’t too far-fetched that I would have one there as well. Normally, I powered my magic from my fingertips. I would have to really focus to force it to gather in my solar plexus, and I wasn’t sure I could manage it.
“Show me,” he said when he saw me hesitating.
“I’m not showing you my tits,” I said. I tried out a laugh, but it came out a cackle. I looked from one to the other, trying to formulate an excuse.
“Show him,” Ari said. This time, the note of command in his voice was tinged with threat.
I stole a look at Uriel. The boy’s face was buried again in the material of Ari’s pants and his little fingers were clinging to it, balled up against his cheeks. The poor thing was scared. He had no idea how critical he was to the salvation of us all. No idea how much danger he was in from the man he clung to. I tried to imagine what that light of his looked like beneath his shirt and coat. I realized Fran had bundled him up so thickly to try to cover up the glow that would show through, affording him some protection.
In that moment, I had my answer. I stuck my hand beneath the hem of my shirt. Gus said something filthy about this not being the time to play with my nipples.
“Shut up,” I said, sick at the lechery in his voice. “Just look.”
I concentrated hard. Telling the magic to come to me no matter where it found my fingers. I shoved the other hand in my pocket in case the power betrayed itself there. I could feel it prickling in my palms and heard a satisfied murmur coming from Gus’s direction. I peeked at Ari. I wanted to know if he was impressed, because if he wasn’t, he should be. He merely stood there rigid, and I had the feeling he couldn’t meet my eye.
“That’s enough,” Gus said, letting my arm go and waving me away with disinterest. “Doesn’t matter how much light you have, no one’s going to buy a redhead.”
It was a blow I hadn’t expected. My stomach felt as though it had curdled. It was just like on Avalon. No one wanted me.
“But you have to take me,” I said, and I hated hearing the pleading tone in my voice. Even Uriel seem to notice how pathetic it sounded. His little fingers scrabbled up Ari’s leg as though he wanted to get as far away from me as he could.
Ari reached down and scooped the boy into his arms again.
“We don’t have to take you,” he said. “Gus is right. No one wants a redhead. I told you that from the beginning. Now go sit down before someone decides you’re good for something else.”
He jerked his chin in the direction of a cluster of young women who wore their lumens against their foreheads. While the illumination they gave off was better than many of the vagrants in the shelter, they all had a look of desperation and used-up demeanors. I had the feeling they earned what light they had in ways that made them feel defeated.
I straightened my spine and lifted my chin. “I wasn’t offering myself for sale,” I said. “I want to be part of you.”
This time, Gus guffawed. “Part of us?” he said. “Don’t think I haven’t considered it. Man after man, you can be part of us—”
It might have been the flat-out sexual meaning that made the ball in my stomach tighten my fists, but it was the way he looked at me as if he’d be doing me a favor that sent me lunging for the bastard.
Long years of practice took over my muscles, and I spun backward, lifting my leg with the momentum and letting the back of my boot land against his cheek. Someone grumbled from nearby and cursed. I was already rebalancing, pulling my torso up straight so that when my foot met the floor again, it was solid enough that I could drop to a crouch. I ended up driving my fist into the sensitive place between his legs. Seconds later, I had rolled beneath him and was already bringing my elbows down between his shoulder blades as he hunched over to cradle his aching scrotum.
I caught Ari’s surprised eye, and I might have felt victorious except that even as Gus went down onto his belly, several of the brigands fell upon me.
Two distinct words hissed into my ear, stealing all my pride and replacing it with fear.
“Kill her.”
Chapter 8
Several pairs of boots shuffled into view beneath me as I tried to scurry away from Gus and bolt sideways. I expected a fist to crash in my ribs or someone to grab hold of my hair. When none of that happened, and I found myself struggling for balance as I finally peeled away from the throng, I was hit with a wave of disappointment instead of relief.
I’d wanted an excuse to hurt them. I wanted to make them pay for Gus making me feel unwanted. Even my palms prickled with the desire to pull in magic and blast them all straight to Coventina’s hellish grave.
Both of my hands pulled back instinctively with the need, the long habit of gathering magic too keen in my muscle memory to stop them from doing so. I was shaking in unspent fury, and I had to clench my fists to keep the desire to harvest power smothered. Gus was on one knee, both hands clutching at his scrotum, but he wasn’t looking at me.
None of them were.
He and every other one of the brigands stared out toward the front of the shelter where some commotion had gained their attention. Perfect timing, as far as I was concerned. If I couldn’t blast them with magic, I�
��d send my boot up between the cracks of their asses and launch them toward the door.
It was then I realized the disturbance was something more than just a bit of commotion. Those homeless who were closest to the door started to yell and edge backward, scrambling over those who were too slow to respond. Whatever it was, everyone in the shelter seemed to prefer the brigands’ company to what was streaming through the door.
Those who had rallied to Gus’s aid when I’d sent him to the floor scurried away toward the noise, no doubt to get every one of their bounty back under control. I was left standing alone, watching three of them detach themselves from the crowd and grab the nearest lumen volunteer.
In turn, they threw each one to the floor, effectively cutting off their lights and sending part of the shelter into darkness. Little by little, the illumination in the room disappeared until the entire shelter was at the mercy of a few pinpricks of light owned by the derelicts.
A man reeled toward me, his grizzled jaw working with panic. In his haste to push past me, he tripped over my foot.
“Get the fuck out of my way, bitch,” he said and shoved at me hard enough that I elbowed someone who had come up next to me—a teenager with ratty hair and rotten teeth.
I swiveled on my feet, trying to keep calm in the growing chaos. The youth’s finger poked toward my eye, and I ducked away just in time, letting it deflect into my temple instead as he scrambled past.
“What’s wrong?” I said. “What is it?”
No one answered, no doubt because no one was listening to anything anymore. I was being peppered now with the feel of hands and hair and shoulders as people pressed close or squeezed by me. Whatever was causing the ruckus had set the entire shelter into a frenzy of curious fear that sounded like bats clicking in the dark.
“Get out,” a woman screamed.
“They’re here,” someone else hollered close to my ear.
I winced and found myself bolting backward, then I twirled about, trying to see through the throngs of people already hustling around, dispersing from their carefully appointed groupings. I caught sight of one man pushing his fingers into the face of another in his haste to push free of the crowd.
Everything was electric, feeding energy into my muscles as powerfully as magic. I wanted to run even though I had no idea what it was I needed to run from.
“Shut it all down,” I heard Ari say, and I scanned the crowd for him. He stood where I’d last seen him, with his arm slung around Uriel’s back as the boy hugged his leg. I’d thought Ari’s grip to be tight enough to scare the boy, but it seemed Uriel took comfort in the touch.
It was a quick look, but in the moment, I could tell Ari’s posture had shifted somewhat as he surveyed the room. He had taken command, his jaw set with focused calm. The man bun seemed to bristle at the edges from static and tension.
Everyone around me began to cover their lumens without question or complaint.
Everything went deadly quiet. I felt the collective inhale of the hundred souls as they waited, the dread and fear of the room a palpable thing. A snorting kind of sound came from the door. I thought I heard Counter Girl call out to Doug. I was quite certain I heard Uriel crying.
The rising stink of sulfur made someone groan out loud.
I knew then what the trouble was—the grim ones.
They had found us, no doubt from my use of magic as I’d tried to fool the brigands into thinking I had a lumen and was normal just like they were. My power had been the homing beacon, drawing the creatures in just like it had done on the beach.
“How in the hell did they find us?” Gus said.
My mouth filled with bitter saliva as I made out the fury and disgust in his voice. Maybe he knew. Maybe he just suspected it, but it was obvious from the sound of his voice that the last thing he had expected was to have to deal with the grim ones.
No, I thought. There’s no way he can make the connection between their arrival and me. He was just pissed, that was all. Inconvenienced that his raid had gone sour.
His complaint sent the room into a frenzy again, and I groped around, trying to find something to orient me in the darkness. If I thought about where Gus’s voice had come from, I could judge him to be about three feet to my left. That meant Ari had to be toward the right. Which in turn meant the toilet curtain was somewhere behind me.
If I could somehow peer through the shadows, I might be able to make a grab for Uriel and dodge my way through the shelter, using the darkness and confusion to my advantage.
I slid my right foot sideways, using the noise of the shouting, the grim ones clicking and snuffling their way through the crowds, and the squeals of fear when they occasionally grabbed someone to my advantage.
The stink grew stronger. Five seconds at most had passed, and already the confusion was turning to chaos. The smacking and the riot of screams intensified. Not just one or two of the grim ones, then, but a horde of them. I wasn’t sure what the grim ones were doing in the darkness, but I knew I didn’t want to find out. What I needed was to grope around for the boy. Surely in the chaos, Ari would have let go of him.
I just had to keep my cool. Not let the sounds of panic run through me.
A gravelly voice from right next to me cut through the screams. “If you’re thinking of slipping away, little one,” it said. “Now would be the time.”
Ari.
Just like he had done on the beach, he had been able to make me out with his night vision. I wondered how keen it was, how keen all the humans’ night vision was. I was still adjusting, and with the full on dark of the shelter, it would be several more moments before I was able to gather enough to make out even the closest form.
I had to rely on my other senses. Hearing was no good—the din of screaming was too raucous to make out anything in particular. So I cocked my head and focused.
I aimed my face for where I thought he was, attempting to sound as though I had no intention of slipping away.
“I was thinking the same thing about you,” I said.
There was a soft chuckle in the dark before he said, “No chance. I need these guys.”
For a heartbeat, there was an electric sort of tension right next to me that made the hairs on the back of my arms stand, and I knew he was very close. I could feel the tentative touch of a leg against mine as the smell of seaweed wafted over me. My breath caught in my chest at his closeness—but it wasn’t fear coursing through me then. It was something else entirely. I didn’t trust him, yet something about being near him felt…good.
My body warmed and my heart beat faster as Ari inched close enough for his breath to tickle against my scalp. I swallowed, trying to steel myself against the strange rush of unidentifiable feelings that crashed into me. I needed to get away from him—away from here.
As I went to take a step, a tide of bodies rammed into me, pushing me sideways and almost toppling me to the floor. I felt two strong hands on my shoulders, steadying me, digging into my biceps. Two hands that I sensed belonged to Ari.
Two hands—that meant they held onto nothing else.
“Where’s Uriel?” I yelled, trying to cut through the noise and hoping I was screaming in the right direction for Ari to hear.
Everything in my entire body seemed to shrink down to a single pinprick. Even the sounds of chaos ebbed away as I imagined one of those grim ones grappling for the boy and stealing him away. Our chance at salvation—gone. Whatever hope I felt when I realized Ari wasn’t holding onto the boy anymore evaporated in the fear of who might have taken him.
By then, the stink of sulfur had grown stronger, and the bodies pressing against me indicated that everyone left in the room was pushing back, trying in vain to get through the crowd. I felt someone’s arm or leg beneath my boot as I was jostled sideways. That grip on my arm was still tight and steady, and the fingers digging into my bicep might as well have been part of my own arm.
“Stay with me, little one,” Ari said in my ear. “They eat the eyes if they can g
et to them, and your vision isn’t so great at the best of times, is it?”
I felt him pulling on me, trying to tug me back. Gus’s voice lifted above the din.
“Get someone’s lumen turned on,” he shouted. “There are too many of them.”
“The boy,” I said again. “Where in the name of Sweet Miriam did you put him?”
Ari might’ve answered me, but it got lost in the sound of my own scream as someone bit down hard on my fingers.
Chapter 9
I was yanked and wrenched from Ari’s grip. When the person bit down again, several of my fingers had found their way in between two rows of teeth and had waggled into the flesh of a clammy tongue. I had one moment to think that a person’s mouth was warm, not icy cold. And then the pain ripped another shriek from me.
In reflex, I dug into the tender flesh beneath the tongue and closed my fist down around the bottom jaw that held me. Pure muscle memory made me yank the owner of the mouth forward and send my knee into its throat.
Man, woman, or grim one—didn’t matter. Panic took me and instinct partnered it. I was a whirling, kicking, punching, swearing dervish there in the dark. Whatever sounds of chaos, whatever smells of fear existed in the room, they had nothing to do with me. I responded to whatever came at me from the shadows, and I let the long hours of training do what they would to whatever got close enough to do me harm.
Sometime during those few moments, faces from the coven came to me, and I was screaming at them as I fought. I saw the bright eyes of that young girl who had run away from me back on the Isle, and I sent my forehead into the skull of the next thing that grabbed for me. Stars blinked behind my eyes. They were bright. So bright it seemed as if the entire world was swimming in light.
It took me several seconds to realize the lights came from the blinking yellow glows of lumens all around me. Whoever had turned on their lumens were close enough to show the piles of bodies that littered the floor around my feet. I was gasping for air, my chest heaving. I thought there was the wet sting of tears behind my eyelids, but I was in too much pain to be sure.
Coven Keepers (Dark Fae Hollows Book 10) Page 8
