by Jenny McKane
“To understand the risk of working with and allying with Skinwalkers, even those proven to have been friendly in the past, you must understand their true natures,” Ronnie said. He’d produced a small leather bag and reached two fingers in, grabbing a pinch of red powder that he then tossed directly in the flames.
The immediate response from the fire was a flare up of intensity and bright white flame that didn’t die off when it probably should have—the pinch of substance was small and insignificant, but whatever Ronnie had done to the flames had altered them with magic.
She watched the dancing flames as they flickered and, from within the bright, white flames, she began to see outlines forming. They were black and featureless, but the more she studied them, the more she could recognize shapes and outlines similar to Talos and Coyote—from the way they moved to the outline of animal heads atop their own, Sunny knew she was watching a magical fire picture show of Skinwalkers. Whether or not they were the ones she knew personally, she couldn’t tell.
But she didn’t think it exactly mattered at the moment.
Ronnie continued the narration and, as if on cue, the shadow people in the flames began to act out the story he was telling.
“They arrived one day without warning,” he began. “They were in their animal forms at first and our ancestors knew there was something wrong with them—they weren’t the right size for an animal and their eyes were human in so many ways. It was as though they arrived in their animal form to observe the tribes. They didn’t make contact at first, but the more they stayed on the fringes, the more nervous the tribe elders became.”
The two figures in the fire had morphed into a bear and a large canine in the flames—maybe a wolf or a coyote? They moved strangely, though, almost as if it was a human on all fours trying to imitate how an animal would move. No wonder the early tribes were wary—they were terrifying even in their shadow form.
“Eventually, either the Skinwalkers sensed no threat from the tribes or they grew too hungry and impatient. Whatever the cause, women and children began to disappear from the villages. Some went to retrieve water and never returned, others were dragged from their huts while the warriors were away hunting,” Ronnie said and, sure enough, the scene played out.
Sunny watched the bear dragging a screaming female figure by the foot with its teeth and devour it. She cringed and had to look away, even though there was no gore or violence per se. She was watching a shadow show, but she could swear she heard the chaos and the screaming nonetheless.
“The warriors took their revenge, of course, and the war between the Skinwalkers and the tribes began less than a generation after the demons first arrived,” Ronnie said. He was leaning forward on his knees and was watching the people around the fire as he spoke and not concentrated on the flames themselves. Sunny wondered how many times he’d watched the scene unfold? Did the violence and the suffering still upset him?
“Skinwalkers are tricksters by nature,” Ronnie continued. “And even if they are not killing people, they are causing discord and chaos among them. Some think its intentional and a way to keep the tribes weak and easy to prey on, and yet others think it’s a consequence of the Skinwalkers ignoring their true nature—the violent one that requires them to kill. That by not killing, they’re unable to resist the need to create strife and confusion among people.”
Sunny watched the shadow Skinwalkers start a fire in a hut. The shadow occupants ran from the hut and immediately began to blame and fight with a neighbor, all the while the wolf Skinwalker watched from afar, even laughing, as the two warriors tore each other apart in anger.
“This is what they are,” Ronnie said just as the flames were sucked back down and disappeared instantly, along with the shadow figures Sunny had been watching. “This is their origin.”
Sunny took a sip from her water bottle and looked to Ronnie.
“So are you saying I shouldn’t trust them? And did they try to trick me somehow with the bargain they asked for?”
Ronnie shrugged and spread his hands wide for Sunny, indicating he didn’t know.
“Demons, yes. But they are also living, sentient beings who make decisions for themselves,” he explained. “I don’t know if they’re being true and will honor their word, but they are bound to it nonetheless. I am only cautioning you to be aware of the trickster nature they bring with them as you move forward on this quest. Whether or not they mean to, they will bring chaos with them and you’ll need to be prepared, as any great leader should be.
Sunny pulled her blanket tighter around her and thought about the impression the Skinwalkers had made on her.
She hadn’t felt overwhelming friendly vibes from them, but they’d also helped her and the team get Beleth down. Coyote had spoken less than Talos had and hadn’t really met anyone’s eyes. And Talos had that staff that seemed to have a lot of power.
But he’d also said much of his power was concentrated on sacred land—tribal lands. What happened to their abilities when they stepped off tribal lands? Were they nearly as powerful?
The more she thought about it, she wondered about the tengu as well. Sure, they’d somehow managed to show up in Sedona and talk to her, but were they as powerful here as they were in Japan, near the temples they guarded?
She asked the question.
“What happens to a demon’s powers when they leave the lands they’re tied to?” She explained further. “Either the Skinwalkers or the tengu that I met in Japan—both of those races have close ties to very specific lands and people. Are they as powerful in other places, far away, as they are on their native grounds?”
She knew that demons like Plaxo and Asmodeus weren’t bound to any location. But their backstory also had nothing to do with an entire culture and history of a certain people or religion.
“I’m not an expert in other types of demons and there are days that I hardly know the Skinwalkers I encounter,” he said. “But I know that they are weakened when they are not attached to their anchor—in this case the land. The tribes have served as anchors in the past, but when they agreed to help patrol, the land became the anchor.”
Plaxo materialized next to Sunny, nearly making her jump out of her skin.
“If the fight leaves sacred lands, does Lady Hunter become the new anchor?”
She frowned at the notion, never having thought of that angle before. Would the Solomon ring change things so much that she’d become an anchor of power to demons who needed such a thing? What would that mean? What would it feel like?
She was more than a little apprehensive but did her best not to show it.
“Again, I don’t know for absolute certain,” Ronnie said. “But my guess would be yes, Sunshine, you would become their anchor as long as they were in service to you and as long as you wore the Solomon ring.”
The bonfire party died out after that, little by little. Eventually Ronnie went home and Gabriel, Sin, and Eli went inside. Plaxo was snoozing on the chair beside Sunny as she scrolled through her phone reading about Skinwalkers when the dying embers of the fire pit in front of her suddenly sparked to life and created a wall of white flame similar to the one that Ronnie had used earlier to tell his story.
Except this time the face that danced in the flames wasn’t shrouded in shadow. It was very clear and it was smiling a menacing grin at her.
Gideon.
Sunny froze, the phone dropping from her hand, and just when she was about to stand and run, Plaxo was up on his feet and screaming something in a language that she didn’t understand. Moments later, the flames were gone for good and the small dream demon stood there, panting from the exertion.
“I didn’t just imagine that, did I?” she asked him.
“No, Lady Hunter,” Plaxo replied, sounding a little spooked himself. “He somehow managed to use the shaman’s magic as a communication link—and it’s bad news.”
Sunny closed her eyes, gripping her blanket tighter and suddenly wanting to be inside behind a locked doo
r.
Gideon had found her. How?
Chapter Sixteen
The place was in an uproar for the next few hours, once Plaxo told Asmodeus what had happened at the fire after they all left.
Gabriel called Ronnie back to set some strong wards around the house and even around Sunny’s room—they were taking no chances at what Gideon would or could pull off now that he was fully working under Camael.
Plaxo stayed that night, sleeping in the living room in front of a small fire in the stone fire place. He’d been travelling between the human and demon realms most of the time, but whatever he’d seen in Gideon’s face in the fire pit had spooked him enough to cancel whatever plans he’d had.
“I’ll be able to sense him, Lady Hunter,” Plaxo assured Sunny as she finally said goodnight to him long after midnight. “You can rest easy.”
They were kind words, but they didn’t really make Sunny feel any better. She knew that when it came to supernatural fire power, she was dealing with a loaded deck in her team. Two archangels, a cambion, an archdemon and a dream demon were nothing to sneeze at. And Eli? He was one of the most experienced Hunters in the game and kept an extra close eye on her.
Sunny’s rational mind knew that she was safe for the most part, but seeing Gideon’s face in the flames, less than five feet away, had shaken her to her very core.
Part rage and part terror, that was the best way she could describe it to Metatron.
“Half of me wanted to give some sort of primal battle cry and attempt to rip his face off while the other part of my brain wanted to run screaming from the circle and hide under my bed.”
Metatron handed her a cup of peppermint tea, her favorite.
“I think those are two very normal human emotions,” he said encouragingly.
“I was frozen, that was the worst part,” she said a little miserably. “All these dreams and talk of getting my revenge on him and I blanked.”
Sunny was frustrated with herself—she’d failed to gather any sort of valuable information that might have been offered with Gideon’s stunt. She was too frozen where she was to try to notice any details surrounding him—had there been any.
“You’re improving every day,” Metatron encouraged her. “Both in physical recovery and in making the right choices for our group. You need to give yourself more credit, Sunny.”
It’d been a while since one of the core group had called her anything other than Rosie or Solomon, and hearing her own voice was kind of nice. She mentioned it to Metatron.
“Did you ever miss your name, Enoch?” she asked. “Was it hard to assume your new identity when you ascended?”
Sipping into his tea, Metatron didn’t answer immediately.
“I had attachments to who I thought I was before,” he finally said quietly. “The new name made me assume that the old me was dead—because the name was. But over many, many, many years, Sunshine, I’ve learned that names are just words. They aren’t what or who you are—they are just words. Words don’t have the real power, our actions and our legacy do.”
Sunny hadn’t meant to turn it into a Hallmark moment, but his words rang true and hit a nerve deep within her. She’d found herself more and more getting bent around the axle when it came to these titles people were bestowing on her.
Solomon.
Rarest of roses.
Rosie.
Leader.
She’d itched at the thought of them because she’d just assumed that it meant that the old her, Sunny, wasn’t good enough or worthy enough to be these new identities. But she was wrong. She was the identities no matter what she was called and she was spending way too much time worried about the wrong things.
It was a moment of clarity for Sunny and she knew that despite making a little ground this go-round, this was a lesson she was going to have to beat into her head over and over again in the coming weeks.
She was the leader. The Solomon.
She was Sunny Bonnard and she was going to save the world.
*****
If she’d known, she’d have taken an entire jar of the pre-workout Eli carried around in his gym bag. Of course, had she known that Gideon was going to make an appearance before the sun came up over Sedona, Arizona, she would have made it known and would have been more prepared.
As it was, she stupidly assumed that she was fine between the wards and the private bodyguards named Plaxo and Eli. However, Gideon had turned into the shadiest, trickiest bastard this side of the demon realm and had a few tricks up his sleeve that no one could have seen coming—least of all Sunny.
He got her in her dreamspace, naturally. The one place she felt somewhat safe because of the training and experience she’d been working on with Plaxo. Not to mention the fact that one of the most powerful dream demons in existence had been sleeping twenty feet down the hall. She’d expected some sort of safety net just because Plaxo had been so close—that he would have sensed something before it became too dangerous.
But no.
She’d foolishly fallen asleep sometime after midnight and he must have been waiting for her.
Her dream, from what she could remember, had started about Sedona. It hadn’t been about anything supernatural, only about the landscape and a rain shower.
It’d started out beautifully.
But soon, the storm got a little more violent and the light rain had quickly turned to wind and strong rains that made it impossible for Sunny to see much around her. Lightning was dancing around the rock formations a few miles away, and she was still deep enough into the dream that she felt fear that she’d be hit by it and hurt.
Sunny glanced around the desert and saw a small concrete radio tower shack in the distance, its door wide open. When thunder cracked and a bolt of lightning landed close enough for her to smell the burn and the heat, she decided to run for it.
For a dream, Sunny was happy to realize that she was moving surprisingly well. Most times when she dreamed of impending danger, her limbs wouldn’t cooperate and she’d feel like she was running in mud or quick sand.
This dream, however, she moved almost gracefully and in short time, made it to the hut.
And that’s the moment she knew she screwed up.
Royally.
He was in the shadows, of course—slunk back in the far corner of the small space. It was an office and an archive of sorts with old metal cabinets along the walls. Papers were strewn everywhere as if someone had just hastily searched for something. Had they found it? Sunny had no clue.
She locked eyes with Gideon and her heart plummeted.
“Shit,” she swore as he moved forward from the darkness. The door behind her slammed shut before she could think to grab the handle and run for it. “Plaxo?” She called out to the dream demon in hopes he could break through what was obviously Gideon’s dream space.
He was controlling everything here and his magic was really strong. Stronger than she ever remembered it.
“He can’t break through,” Gideon said. “And besides—three’s a crowd and all that?”
Sunny was defenseless. And even though it was a dream and hurting someone in a dream, physically, was next to impossible, she knew powerful dream demons could do enough psychological damage to a person that they’d never recover.
And while Gideon wasn’t a dream demon, whatever sort of demon this nox creature was creating in him was just as scary and way darker than Plaxo.
“I don’t want to be here,” Sunny said, speaking the honest truth but also doing her best not to sound like she was falling apart. “Let me out.”
Gideon came to stand on the opposite side of the old, green metal desk that now separated them. He put his fists on the flat surface and leaned over it toward her, his eyes bright and reminiscent of the man she knew. She had expected him to look more like a monster by this point.
“Not yet, Rosie,” he said, his smile spreading wide, revealing bright, shiny and perfectly square teeth. Again, she’d expected something more pointed
, sharp and nox-ish.
“Why aren’t you more like them?” she asked, meaning the nox.
He held her gaze as shadows began swirling around at his feet, creeping up his back and sliding around his shoulders. The shadow skin. Okay—creepy.
“Who’s to say I’m not?” He rumbled, his voice growing deeper and more monotonous. “I’m very much like them when I want to be.”
She swallowed hard as the shadows disappeared back into the floor. Gideon didn’t speak much at first, simply taking her in with hard eyes. They were the same tawny gold they’d always been and his hair was the same golden brown that it’d always been—but it was longer now and held in a messy ponytail at the base of his head. He had a bit of a scruff on his cheeks now, making him look older and more hardened than her Gideon.
Even the Gideon who’d been along for the ride while they summoned the Guardians hadn’t been her Gideon. She hadn’t seen the man she fell in love with since Seattle—when he left with Azrael for the Shadow Realm. She realized now that she’d truly lost Gideon Lafayette the day the succubus army died and he sacrificed his freedom for her own.
So, what did this asshole want? To torment her?
“Do what you came to do or let me out of this stupid dream,” Sunny said as she took a step forward and gave the desk the hardest front kick she could. It was lighter than she’d expected, thankfully, and it slid back suddenly and violently, hitting Gideon in the lower body and forcing him to step back. “I’m too busy to screw around with your father’s games. Make your move. Or don’t. I truly don’t give a shit anymore.”
Gideon was still perfectly human when he smiled at her again.
“The fight’s much stronger in you than it’s ever been. That’s good, Sunshine,” he said, giving her an annoying slow clap. “You’re going to need it for what we have planned.”
“And you’re not going to tell me, right?”
“Of course not,” he shook his head like she was crazy.
“And you’re not going to try to kill me right now?”
