Ascendant (The Shift Chronicles Book 4)

by Eva Truesdale

  “Stop it.”

  “Or what? You’ll kill me too?”

  I tried to look away, but the fingers he had on my face wrapped tighter as claws unleashed from his fingertips. It was like resting my face in a bear-trap. And any sudden movement was probably going to make it snap.

  “Now,” he mused, “What to do with you?”

  “Let me go,” I said quietly.

  “Well I can’t do that, I’m afraid.”

  I felt hot, angry tears pricking at the corner of my right eye, the only eye that still had a properly functioning tear duct. The silver poisoning had destroyed the other one. Silver from the same knife that now rested beneath my foot. The same knife that I knew could destroy this man in the same way, if only I could reach it.

  If only I could bring myself to do it.

  “Why don’t you come with me, and we’ll decide the best way to take care of you?” he asked, though it wasn’t really a question; his hand took my wrist in a vicious grip as he said it, and he jerked me into step beside him.

  One step, two steps….

  You know he isn’t going to reason with us, Alex.

  He can’t.

  I twisted so I could aim a strong kick into the small of his back. It made him buckle enough that I was able to tear myself from his grip. I scrambled back, dropped down to the mud, and felt around until my hand closed around the knife’s handle once more.

  The man shot toward me, and I just barely managed to roll aside in time to avoid him.

  He hit the side of the house and propelled off it with enough force that I couldn’t avoid his reach a second time; he got both hands around my left ankle, and his claws sank in deep, sending a current of my blood rushing down to mix with the mud and weeds we were wrestling in.

  The pain was dizzying. Too much. Too fast. The world spun with it, and I put all my determination on keeping ahold of that knife, on hiding it underneath me as he rolled me onto my back and loomed over me, breathing heavily. His claws were balanced against my chest, pressing a little deeper as he leaned up and brought his face closer to mine. I couldn’t tell, anymore, if the liquid soaking my clothes and trailing over my skin was blood or rain.

  “You’re only bringing yourself unnecessary pain,” he said.

  His eyes were so close.

  Close enough that I wanted to think I could see the real person behind them. That they could see me, too, as I whispered, “I know this isn’t your fault. And I’m sorry.”

  The man’s eyebrows rose. He drew his body back a little bit.

  But not far enough.

  In a single, quick motion, I lifted up and pulled the knife from underneath me, unsheathed it, and plunged it into his stomach.

  His claws clenched. An automatic reaction to my attack, one that drove those claws a bit deeper into my chest. But I was growing numb to pain. And his hand was soon slipping away, anyhow; it clutched for the ground beside me instead, for something more solid to brace against.

  “What are you doing?” he panted. “You know what this will do to—”

  I twisted the knife deeper, cutting him off. No more mind games, I thought. I’m not listening. Because it was only the feral speaking, and they had no right to be using that voice, anyway.

  He was persistent, though.

  He kept trying to talk, even as more and more of his stolen body’s blood ran down my arm. Even as I could smell the pungent scent of silver poisoning burning through his internal organs.

  “Oh, what a monster you’re becoming,” he managed to whisper as his arms shook and his body slumped, bringing his face even closer to mine.

  “I’m only trying to fight the real monsters,” I said, teeth clenching with the effort of speaking while trying to hold my hands steady around the knife.

  “I see….” He coughed, spluttering flecks of blood and spit on my face. “Just be sure you don’t go too far over the edge, hm?”

  I shoved my foot into his hip and lifted him up and over, slicing his stomach further open in the process. He rolled to his back, coughing a few more times, his arms and legs flailing for a moment before settling limply down beside him. He was still breathing. I remembered what Joseph had said, about the feral’s magic protecting the bodies they took, and I was afraid that he was only lying still because that magic was busy healing him. Afraid that he might crawl back to his feet any second, and then I’d have to start killing him all over again.

  The knife was still shaking in my hand.

  I fought my way to my hands and knees, and now our positions were reversed; I loomed over him, eyes glaring down and knife lifted, gripped with both hands.

  “Monster,” he sputtered, and his eyes flashed to pure, clear green for a moment.

  I knew it was a trick. More mind games. But those eyes still made me feel like I was going to throw up—if I didn’t pass out, first. My body swayed, tempted by the thought.

  A hand wrapped suddenly around my waist, steadying me.

  “Give me the knife, Alex,” Kael said.

  “I can’t.”

  “Yes you can.”

  I knew why he wanted it. He wanted to protect me, to do this himself so he could keep more blood from my hands. But couldn’t he see the blood I’d already collected? One drop, or a hundred—it didn’t matter in the end. It all stained the same way. And I’d started this.

  So I finished it, too.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered again to those green eyes that had already clouded over once more.

  And then I slit his throat.

  Twelve

  clean

  The blood-covered knife lay in the weeds where I’d dropped it.

  I stood and stumbled back. Pain from the claw wounds in my ankle made me limp, and the wind burning into the cuts along my chest made it feel like it was on fire. Movement aggravated the healing process, already slow due to my weakened and feverish state, and it made the bleeding increase.

  Still, I kept moving, hobbling a bloody trail away from what I’d done.

  Monster, said a savage and strange voice deep in my mind.

  “I need to find Vanessa,” said my own, familiar—if faint— voice, though I didn’t really know who I was talking to. “I need to make sure she’s okay.”

  I needed to see her face.

  I needed to see her smile. To see something pure. Something clean. I wanted to hear her laugh and joke and assure me that a warm and fuzzy heart-to-heart could fix any hurt in this world, no matter how deeply that hurt ran.

  “She’s fine,” Kael said quietly. “She’s on her way, along with the others. Didn’t you hear her calling?”

  I shook my head.

  Not over my own thoughts, or over that silver knife still humming. I hadn’t heard her, and I could barely hear Kael. I could barely see him, either, because everything outside of that knife and that still and bleeding body seemed blurry. Distant. I forced myself to stop looking back at those things. There had to be something else that was clear, didn’t there?

  I circled around and around, searching.

  Then I saw it through the trees: A pure sliver of dark blue.

  The sea, I realized after a moment.

  It was much closer than I realized.

  And I had already started walking toward it.

  I heard more voices in my head You’re bleeding, Alex. Please stop. Please wait. I need to at least move him out of sight—

  But nothing, and nobody, would stop me from getting away from that house. Those bodies. I walked on, and as I did, a memory slipped into the spaces between my desperate thoughts; a memory from soon after my dad’s funeral, of an overcast sky and a chill wind and my feet trying to carry me away from death.

  And it felt, suddenly, like I was back to the day when all of this madness began.

  I was walking to the sea, same as I’d walked down to the lake near my house, and when I reached the water I did the same thing I had back then; I watched the wind pushing the waves over my feet for a moment, and then I waded
out until I was knee-deep.

  The waves were rougher, here. The saltwater stung my injuries. But it reminded me of what my dad used to tell me, whenever he was treating all the cuts and scrapes I got as a kid who didn’t know her limits when it came to climbing trees or anything else; disinfecting those wounds hurt, but that only meant that they were being properly cleaned. Sometimes things hurt, but that just meant they were healing.

  I didn’t think that was the case this time, though.

  Because the blood was washing away, but the wounds still ached.

  And there were some pains, I think, that even the most powerful waves couldn’t wash away.

  I sensed someone behind me, and—just as I had that day in the lake—I turned to find Kael watching me. But unlike that day, when he’d stayed on the shore, this time he waded out to meet me. We stood for a moment without speaking. The dark water crashed around us, spraying briny mist on our faces. I cupped some of it in my hands, and started to rub away the bits of blood that had settled in the lines of my palms. I kept rubbing even after the blood was gone, until Kael finally grabbed my arm and held me still.

  “I’m never going to forget his eyes,” I said quietly. “Or his voice. He called me a monster, and I will never, ever forget it. I don’t think I should.”

  Kael stepped around to face me, and he used the sleeve of his jacket to wipe my face clean of the blood and dirt and whatever else it was still streaked with. “And that,” he quietly said as he worked, “is exactly why you aren’t a monster.”

  I stared forward, unconvinced. My voice and my body were giving in to the numbing effect of the cold sea spray. Part of me wanted to sink beneath the surface, just like I had in the lake that day. I still remembered the vague sort of peacefulness that had hit me once the sunlight had drifted from my reach back then—once there seemed like there was no hope, so why bother fighting?

  Kael pulled me from my memory by taking both of my hands, steadying me just as a particularly large wave crested over and left both of us mostly soaked and shivering.

  “Are you listening to me?” he asked, pushing away the damp strands of hair that clung to my forehead. “Don’t let them do this to you. You aren’t the same as them.”

  I couldn’t find my voice, but I managed a slow nod.

  Because I knew he wouldn’t let me drown here, even if I really wanted to, so there was no point in fighting.

  “I just needed to wash away the blood.” My voice sounded frighteningly small next to the sea sweeping infinitely away from us.

  Kael answered by kissing my forehead and pulling me close. I buried my face into his chest as he wrapped his arms around me and heaved a quiet sigh. And I tried to imagine, for a moment, that neither of us had just washed away any blood. That we were just a normal couple enjoying a wild and romantic—if freezing cold—dip in the sea. I clutched the front of his shirt, hands moving over the well-defined muscles that drenched shirt accented, and I stretched up and pushed my shivering lips against his.

  And then I let him carry me from the water, only because it was like a wonderfully passionate thing you’d see on the cover of a romance novel, and not because the pain from the claw marks along my leg made me wince with every step.

  Once we were back on the shore, though, all the world seemed to fall back over us at once, crushing away any sense of fantasy I had. I stared up toward the trees, toward the house they concealed. I thought about making a joke, something about dead bodies being the ultimate mood killer. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Dumb jokes had been my reliable defense mechanism for so long—but now that mechanism was malfunctioning, and I was forced to dig deeper and come up with something else to help me stand once Kael had put me back on my feet.

  I’d left a clear trail of blood among the rocks and the greyish-white sand that led down to the water. More blood than I’d realized—which was probably another part of the reason I felt so lightheaded. The bright red was easy to focus on, though, which made it easier to make my way back. Because it meant I didn’t have to focus on where I was going.

  Or on how badly I didn’t want to go there.

  “We don’t have to go back to the house right now,” Kael said as we walked. Either because he’d heard my thoughts, or maybe he just noticed the way I was stumbling every few steps—as if my body was physically rebelling against the idea of retreading this bloody path. “I’ll take you to meet the others somewhere else; Will and I can go back to take care of the bodies and everything without you.”

  I wanted to agree with him, but my gut told me I couldn’t. “I need to go back,” I said, voice breathy from a combination of cold and pain. “We all do. I feel like we missed something there.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “That weird feeling I had, right before we were attacked? And then the two who attacked us…They both seemed surprised to see me there. I don’t think they were actually there because of us.”

  Kael slowed for half a step, looking caught up in thought. “You’re right,” he said a moment later.

  “They came for something else. I’m sure of it. And I want to check that one room closer.”

  He nodded and offered me a steadying arm so I could move faster, and together we climbed over the blood and rocks and made our way back.

  Thirteen

  follow

  “Are you okay?”

  I didn’t answer Kael’s question right away. I was too distracted by the strange tingling in my skin as I felt my way along the walls of the seemingly empty room. “I just know something is here…” I mumbled again, more to myself than him.

  Most of the others were outside. Will and Eamon had taken care of the two bodies, while Kael kept close to me, and Vanessa paced the dead-end road outside, ready to intercept any overly curious neighbors. Joseph had stayed behind at the camp. Which was frustrating, because I was convinced there was magic at work in this house, and I’d been looking forward to his help in trying to make sense of it.

  But I guess I understood why he wasn’t here. Because as difficult as it was for Kael to come here, he didn’t have as many clear memories of his mom and this place as Joseph did—assuming all of those memories Joseph had told me were actually true, anyway.

  I frowned at the thought of my conversation with Kael earlier.

  What is the truth? I wondered. And what sort of secrets are you hiding, house?

  I sighed, moving back to the small fireplace in the corner of the room. Whenever my hands moved over its brick face, that tingling in my skin grew more intense, so I wanted to study it closer.

  The fireplace looked as though it hadn’t functioned in a long time. There were no ashes around it, only dust and cobwebs. The opening had been bricked up, but several of those bricks were chipped or crumbling in the corners. And a sound, almost like wind whispering through the cracks, was coming from it—which made sense, because it was an outside wall that this fireplace was built into.

  I couldn’t see any sign of daylight through the cracks, though.

  I leaned closer.

  “It’s not the wind…” I thought aloud.

  Or if it was, it sounded suspiciously…voice like.

  “What’s not the wind?” Will asked, stepping into the room.

  Instead of answering him, I lifted my hands in front of me and gave them a shake. It was a habit that I had developed, one to help me focus on calling magic in a controlled sort of way; but now the motion just reminded me of the wounds in my chest, painfully jerking at the scars that had started to form there. I winced, gritted my teeth, and breathed in deep.

  It wouldn’t take much magic to do what I needed to do.

  Just get through it, I thought, reaching out and touching the nearest cracked brick.

  Orange light flowed from my fingertips and into one of the cracks, filling it and then flowing into the other fissures like glowing, molten lava. Once I was convinced that I had summoned enough power, I focused on expanding it. I could feel the bricks r
esisting as I did, as if my actual hands were in those fissures, trying to force the fireplace apart and reveal whatever it was hiding.

  I sensed Will and Kael moving to my side, but neither of them said or did anything to break my concentration. Because I had a feeling even they could hear it too, now: Not the wind, but a voice speaking in a strange language, growing louder and louder as the seconds passed.

  I lifted my hands together in front of me and then pulled them swiftly apart. The magic they controlled pulled apart with the motion, and the pressure of the flames began to work the bricks free. Slowly at first, but then, in an explosion of magic and dust and chips of stone, the center of the fireplace imploded and slid down into a pile of rubble at my feet. I waved the dust away from my mouth, coughing.

  When it settled, I was facing a barrier of magic, rippling and crackling with energy.

  That wasn’t the strange thing, though. What was strange was what I could clearly see on the other side of the barrier’s opaque, shimmering surface: A staircase, leading up.

  We all stared for several long moments.

  Will was the first to say, “That’s impossible.”

  Kael walked to the nearest window, just a few feet down on the same wall we were facing. He peered outside, toward what should have been the back of the fireplace, and he shook his head. “Illusionary magic?” he guessed, looking back at me.

  “I don’t think so. I could be wrong, but I don’t think it feels the same.” I lifted a hand forward, feeling the warm air around it. I didn’t get any closer than that, though. Because something told me that, whatever this was, it was powerful. And probably dangerous. “And I don’t think I want to touch it,” I added.

  They both nodded in agreement, and we were quiet for a few minutes before an unexpected voice caught our attention: Joseph’s. I turned and found him standing in the doorway, his hand resting and body leaning heavy against the frame. His frown was pained. His eyes, empty. He didn’t look like he wanted to move any closer.