The Shadow City (The Demon-Born Trilogy Book 2)

by L. C. Hibbett

  “You knew the man who built the city for the Circle?” I stared at Jonah.

  “Yes. Now, I need you to embrace each other.” Jonah’s face was grim as he grabbed Sam’s hands and placed them around my waist. He frowned. “Closer. Skin against skin. I can feel how unrefined your powers are; you need every benefit you can get if this is going to work.”

  My cheeks blushed as I stared at Sam’ chest, still bare from our aborted dip in the bathing pool. I pushed the cloak over my shoulders and pressed myself my stomach against his. A volcano of nervous energy bubbled inside my gut, and I breathed deeply to try and control the urge to burst into a fit of giggles. The sound of a door opening somewhere along the corridor hit me like a bucket of icy water. I stared at Jonah. “What now?”

  Cain and Cat ran to the door and leaned their weight against it. Eve’s eyes widened as the sounds of footfall came closer. Jonah dug his fingers into my shoulders. “Seeker, the old woman who was sitting with me in the theater, can you draw her into your mind?”

  I nodded and brought her face into my mind's eye. Jabol turned to Sam. “Reaper, I need you to feel the Seekers energy. Let it flow through you, gather her connection to the old woman into your mind.”

  My breath caught in my throat as I felt Sam creeping inside me, his energy sliding over my skin like strong fingers. I reached out for him with my Seeking power, offering him the old lady. Jonah hissed in our ears. “Now! Hold her between you, but don’t draw her here. Push your power out through the ceiling above your heads. Bring us to her.”

  My eyes flew open, and I saw my panic reflected in Sam’s eyes. The footsteps halted outside the cell door, and a key rattled in the lock. Sam glared at Jonah. “We can’t, that’s not possible. I’m a Reaper. I bring things to me; I can’t bring us to them.”

  The lock grated as it turned. Cain and Cat’s faces were white as they crushed their back against the door. Eve pulled Dawn and Ozzie behind her skinny back. Jonah smashed me against Sam’s chest with enough pressure to bruise my ribs. “You are not just the Reaper and the Seeker—you are a pair. Powers that fit together to form one whole.” Voices raised outside the door as Cain and Cat struggled to hold it closed. Jonah screamed in our ears. “Connect your powers. She can find her, you can move us through space to be with her. Move us!”

  I threw my arms around Sam’s neck and dragged his lips against mine, drinking in every ounce of his energy, feeding him mine. Sam inhaled deeply and drew me into his arms, grabbing me behind the knees so that my legs were wrapped around his waist. The room around us began to spin, and I shot a net of energy out to gather the others to us. Dawn reached down and snatched our belongings from the ground.

  The last thing I saw before the world spun out of focus, was Peter and Fergus bursting through the door. Fergus was screaming in fury and rage, but Peter’s smile stretched from ear to ear.

    Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Bastards!” Cat slammed the earthenware cup down on the scrubbed wooden table, and the dark brown liquid inside sloshed over the side and trickled over her fingers. She stared at her hands as the soup scalded her skin, too disturbed by what we had told her about the Circle testing Valerie and Diamond to notice.

  Eve leaned over and wiped Cat’s fingers with the damp cloth the old woman, Anna, offered her. “Cat, please don’t use that word. It has been used as a weapon against people like us for far too long.”

  “The knife has turned, Eve. I’ll use it against them if I want.” Cat’s face flushed, but she didn’t repeat the word. She exhaled and rested her head in her hands, craning her neck to see into the other room where Dawn and Ozzie were staring wide-eyed at the endless rows of potions and charms. “She couldn’t have been much older than Dawn. We knew they were bad, but that’s monstrous.”

  “Thirteen.” The old woman set a plate of coarse unbuttered bread in the center of the table. “Diamond was thirteen, but small for age—like most of the children in the city. Starvation is one of the Circle’s most basic tools for attempting to break the spirit. Please, eat. You will need your strength to escape the city.” Her smile as she gestured to the food did little to disguise the pain in her eyes. I took a bite of the hard bread and chewed. Sam and Cain did the same.

  Eve reached out her hand and placed it against Anna’s wrinkled skin. “You suffer. I didn’t know the girl was anything to you. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t try to heal my pain, friend.” The old woman closed her hand gently over Eve’s. “Thank you for your kindness, but my grief is all I have left to remind me of Diamond’s brief life. Leave me with it.”

  Sam met my eye, and we both looked away. My throat closed around the food, and I took a gulp of soup from my cup. Eve released the woman’s hand. “I understand.” She flexed her arms and stretched them over her head. “I must thank you for the healing tincture. You are very skilled.”

  Anna dipped her head with a small smile. “I have had many years to study the art.”

  “And you were a master healer before this imprisonment began.” Jonah swallowed the final gulp of liquid from his cup and stood up, gesturing for the old woman to take his seat. “There is nobody on this earth with greater potion making ability than Anna.”

  The old woman’s papery skin blushed at the praise, and she shook her head. “I wish that I had more than potions to offer. If I could have helped the girls to see beyond the lies the Circle sold them… Unfortunately, there are only certain ills that a potion can heal—”

  “How long have you been here?” We all twisted around to look at Ozzie in surprise as he cut across Anna. Dawn stood behind him, a shadow of pure light.

  “Since the beginning.” Anna’s voice showed no trace of irritation at Ozzie’s accusatory tone.

  I twisted my bread crust between my fingers and thumb. “You’re not Demon-Born, did you come here as a follower of the Circle?”

  “I came as a mother.” I looked away before Anna did.

  Jonah began to pace the small, windowless room. “Like me, Anna is tied to this city and the Circle, but she has never approved of their actions. I hadn’t seen her for a long time, but it was she who called to me after my library was destroyed.” His forehead creased. “I knew I was getting close to the truth when they tried to ruin my work, but I didn’t know for certain that my suspicions were correct until I followed Anna’s call to the City.”

  “What suspicions? That the Circle were breeding children from the essence of the Spirit Demons?” I chewed on the skin beside the thumbnail.

  “No, I had no idea that was how they intended to achieve their goal of recreating the Lost Powers, but I suspected that was their intent. To control the powers of the Halfling race and use them against the Humans.” Jonah began pacing again. “It was so obvious, I was almost there—have you read my diary?”

  His head swiveled to stare in my direction, and I lunged for our grimy pile of belongings and rooted through the backpack, pulling the leather-bound book out with a sigh of relief. Sam eyed the diary with a raised eyebrow. “She’s read it a hundred times. There’s nothing in it. Gabriel and Emmanuel spent a year going through every page, and making Grace study it—there’s nothing there we didn’t already know.”

  “Nothing that you can see, Reaper. Your other half will find a different tale if she opens her eyes to the truth. It is a Seeker’s diary—written by a Seeker, for a Seeker.” I opened my mouth to question Jonah, but heavy banging on the front door made the words shrivel on my lips.

  Anna sprang to her feet and dragged Ozzie and Dawn inside the room. Cat and Cain pulled the two youngsters close to them as the old woman closed the door to the small room behind her and made her way to the entrance of the potions house. Jonah placed a finger to his lips. “This room was designed to be undetectable and impenetrable by the Circle, but we take no risks.”

  Voices filtered through the house and the sound of footsteps stamping into the s
toreroom on the other side of the wall beat against my eardrums. I recognized Peter’s slithering tones. “What do you have that can help us locate them, Mother-of-all. They can’t have gone far, how they escaped the prison cell at all is quite the mystery…”

  His silence was more frightening than his words, and my skin crawled as I imagined him running his fingers over Anna’s cheek. I sat on my fists. Jonah screwed his eyes shut and pressed his forehead against the wall as Anna began to answer. “I have many potions to help find what is lost. Do you have anything that belongs to the missing that I can use?”

  “I told you they were clever little shits, Peter. That’s why they bothered to take all their filthy rags with them.” My skin crawled as I recognized the rough tones as belonging to Fergus. I saw him in my mind’s eye, leering at the elderly lady, with pretty Lara trailing behind him like a dour shadow.

  “I need far less than clothing. A hair would suffice. Sweep out the cell and bring me what you find.” Anna’s voice faded as she led her unwelcome guests out of the house, but I didn’t breathe again until she appeared in the doorway. Her face was ashen. “Time runs short; we need to move quickly.”

  The old woman pressed her hand against the wall, and a hidden doorway appeared. She snatched the lamp from the table and the candlelight cast an eerie glow over the steep stone staircase. Anna led the way, and the rest of us followed. Jonah came last, sealing the door behind us.

  The steps led to a low, narrow passageway. Sam and Cain had to crouch over so that their heads didn’t smack against the curved stone ceiling. Jonah beckoned for us to follow him. “The city was designed to offer maximum protection to its few inhabitants, allowing entrance and exit from only two points. One from the citadel, and one through the crevices in the magic barrier that only a Seeker could find.”

  I grabbed Jonah’s sleeve and tugged him to a halt. “Like we did earlier to escape from the cell?”

  “Exactly.” The Demon patted my hand and began to move forward again, upping his pace to a jog.

  I lengthened my stride. “Why don’t we just do it here? We can cast that net, and I will take us to Gabriel—he’s your friend, right? He told me his friend would protect me when Fergus sent me through the portal last year.”

  Jonah’s lips thinned, and he broke into a run. “Gabriel was foolish to take such a risk. He had no idea whether I was able to protect you or not.”

  “But he knew you were here? You sent him a message?” I ran to keep level with the Demon.

  Jonah shook his head. “No. Gabriel knew I was here only because he sensed me when Fergus and Lara opened the portal. The Circle believed they could call more Demons to their cause, and many have fallen victim to their selfish desires and been drawn into this web—whenever the portal to this place was opened, Gabriel sensed my presence. We have a bond.”

  I waited for Jonah to elaborate, but he continued on in silence. We followed him through a warren of tunnels, and I tried to keep track of the turns we took so that we could make our way back if needs be, but it was impossible. The Demon stopped abruptly in the middle of the passageway and pressed his hands against the rough stone wall. The blocks under his fingers gave way, and we squeezed through the narrow gap and found ourselves in a circular room.

  I twisted and turned, trying to see the painted walls in their entirety. Like the curved hallway Peter had led us through, the pictures told a story, but it was a very different version of history. The paintings were plain and simple in comparison to the majestic artistry we had seen earlier.

  My fingers stroked the rows of dead children covering the base of the picture, stretching from the foreground into the horizon. A man kneeled among them, cradling the body of an infant in his arms. Tears flooded his gentle brown eyes, and his long dark hair appeared to blow in the breeze. Four figures stood to his right side and four more stood to his left. Their hands were raised, I could not tell whether in anger or to cast a charm, but the crying figure paid them no heed.

  Sam paced the periphery of the room before turning to face Jonah. “What is this? Is that the Circle? Did you paint this?”

  “No. Niamh and Anna did.” Jonah wrapped his arm around the old woman’s shoulder, and she smiled, her eyes fixed on the picture of the weeping man.

  Sam crossed his arms. “Niamh painted this? Niamh knows about this city? Is this some kind of a setup? Was it Niamh that opened that portal and sent us to the Circle?”

  “It’s not a painting of the Circle.” I walked forward and touched the wall, pressing my palm against the painted cheek of the man with the long dark hair. “This is a painting of the Elders.” Sam and Cain both began to argue with me, but I shrugged my shoulders. “It is. That’s the Halfborn Elder. I saw his face when we went to the courtroom in the Angelic University—on display in that awful glass case.”

  A strangled cry escaped from Anna’s mouth, and I turned around in concern. She sealed her lips and stared at the ground. Eve took a halting step toward the wall, and something about the way her face was stretched tight made the blood rush inside my ears. She lifted her hand and pointed at one of the eight figures in the painting, standing with arms aloft, and I squinted my eyes to try and focus on the outline of its face.

   My heart ceased beating as horror and understanding crashed over me like a tsunami. The face belonged to Peter. Peter’s face. Nine podiums in the circular theater—one empty for an absent brother. The Circle. The Elders.

  I sank onto the floor; my legs weakened by an overwhelming tide of despair. My brain processed Sam’s words through a fog of disbelief. “The Circle—they control the Veil. They control everything. We can’t fight them. The Circle are the Elders.”

    Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “When I first came to this world, I was searching for a great darkness. A black parasite that had been burrowing its way through every dimension. My people were not the only ones who had sensed the badness. In every realm I met others like me—travelers sent by their worlds to track the darkness before it could infect and destroy us all.” Jonah leaned his back against the painted wall and stared up at the ceiling.

  I crossed the room and stood next to Eve. Sam gravitated toward us, but his eyes were still fixed on Jonah as he began to speak again. “The Spirit War had already begun when I got here. I had never seen anything like those creatures—parasites of the soul and the heart. At first, the people of this world were united in their fear, and their ruling council supported each community in their battle against this plague of evil, but in time the terror gave birth to blame, and I watched in utter horror as the Angels and the Humans turned against their mixed blood brothers.”

  Jonah glanced at Anna with eyes full of sorrow and regret. “I was deep in the desert when the ruling leaders, the serving Elders that you now know as the Circle, made their decision to sacrifice the Halfborn race, and use their energy to create a Veil. By the time I returned to Rome, the sacrifice had been made, the Veil had descended, and I was trapped here.” He scrubbed his hands over his face. “I felt the barrier fall. Felt that entire population wiped out in one fell swoop. I can’t describe the grief…”

  He took a deep breath and pulled away from the wall. “This world never recovered. The Spirit Demons all but vanished, but much else was lost. The Halfborn race were a beautiful people—the magic of the Angels, the skill of the Humans. The Lost Powers were a testimony to the might of the race.” Jonah bowed his head for a moment. “The ability to travel between the realms limited the people, and the world fell into ignorance. Despite their great intellect, Humans fought and starved each other, and the Angels grew stagnant and insular.”

  “You helped them build this city?” Eve’s voice was brittle.

  Jonah flinched. “After the Veil fell, I returned to Rome and sought out the other Demons who had become trapped in this realm, the Original Demons, and we made a pa
ct to help this world as much as we could while we waited to return home. It was too late to save those who had been sacrificed, but we hoped for a better future. Niamh and I helped create this city for the Elders, a sanctuary we called it, in the hopes of keeping the future children safe.”

   “You could have killed the Elders, and then the Veil would have fallen, and you could have gone home.” Ozzie stared at Jonah with bold eyes.

  Jonah gave him a respectful nod. “I considered that—I can’t lie, but destroying the Veil isn’t as easy as it sounds.” The Demon gave me a pointed glance. “The diary explains much of this.” He looked back at Ozzie. “Even if we could have broken the barrier, we didn’t wish to see the Spirit War reignite. We couldn’t risk allowing Humans to see Angels in their true light, lest the attraction begin again, and a new race of Halflings draw the Spirit Demons on the people again. We begged the Elders to see the Veil as a temporary measure while they found a way to obliterate the scourge of the Spirit Demons permanently. We tried to help the rest of the world as much as we could, but we never condoned the Veil. I don’t believe anyone has the right to play God. The Humans should not be kept blind to the true reality, and Halfling children should not be forfeit to the Veil.”

  “But when did the Elders become the Circle? Does the Council know what they have become, what their planning to do?” Cat twisted the end of her shirt into a tight little knot.

  Sam clenched his jaw. “Of course they know, they run the Silent Homes that the Circle used to breed us! Breed us with Spirit Demons—if they hate and fear the Spirit Demons so much, then why do they keep them as pets?”

  “I don’t have all the answers, Reaper—” Jonah tried to put a hand on Sam’s shoulder, but he shrugged him off and started to crack his knuckles, muttering about decades of time in hiding to figure it out, and bullshit answers. Cain reprimanded Sam for his unhelpful comments, and the room exploded into a jumble of raised voices. I backed away and started to count the gaps in the wall that served as exits from the room. Something flickered at the edge of my consciousness. A familiar streak of purple and gold. My eyes were drawn to one of the curved arches leading from the room, and I sidled toward the tunnel.