Shadows of Fate (Shadow Born)

by Angela Dennis

  “Of course,” she replied, smiling slightly. “Okay, I think we’re on. Gray’s team just disappeared inside the compound.”

  Seraph nodded. He pulled his sword free of its sheath. “Are you ready?”

  “Let’s kill the bastards.”

  As they raced through the clearing, Brenna’s thoughts were on Gray. She desperately wanted him to survive. Until now she hadn’t realized the depth of their connection. If they both lived, she would have to come to terms with those feelings.

  Pushing Gray from her mind, she followed Seraph across the dirt courtyard. The front gates had been blown open, and though the battle raged on elsewhere, dead hunters, vampires and demons littered the ground. Their goal now was to get onto the roof and into the ventilation shafts. They climbed one of the rusty ladders attached to one of the far walls unnoticed. Once there, they crawled inside the main shaft.

  The small space made her feel claustrophobic. They crawled several yards when Seraph stopped. He shrugged off his backpack.

  “This is the place. We need to set the first of the charges in the room beneath us.” He slowly turned on his side to reach the grate. With a quick tug, he pulled it free and motioned for her to move down. “Go set your charges. I’ll keep guard.”

  Brenna dropped down without a sound. The room appeared to be an observatory or lab of some type. The walls were stark white against the dark tile. There were human size metal cages stacked from floor to ceiling on one wall. The rest held shelves of full syringes and pills.

  Claudius was right. They were performing experiments on the vampires. The thought made her more uneasy. Brenna pulled the charge from her satchel and placed it against the far wall. She cast an invisibility spell under her breath and watched as it disappeared from sight. She was about to jump back up to the vent when she heard footsteps.

  She dropped behind a large waste disposal container seconds before the door flew open and two men stepped inside. She saw their reflections in the clouded glass of the container. Their eyes shone with the unearthly light of possession. She looked up.

  Damn. The ceiling grate hung open.

  The younger of the two men stepped back into the hall. He returned with reinforcements. It was now seven against two if Seraph joined the fight. The men were armed with automatic weapons and she could smell extra magic surrounding them. Apparently the demons had recruited some powerful witches of their own.

  One of the men moved forward. A tall, lanky man who reminded her of the old Earth folktale character Ichabod Crane. He smoothed his hand over each wall muttering an incantation under his breath. When he reached the place she had placed the device, her invisibility spell dissolved, leaving the bomb visible to the naked eye.

  She watched in dismay as he ripped the mechanism off the wall and tossed it to another host who carried the bomb off.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are.” He moved across the room, getting closer to her with each step. She prayed Seraph had taken his own advice and left. If the demons managed to take them both out, the mission would fail.

  “We know you’re in here.” He paused, still searching. “Our master wants to talk to you. No bloodshed.”

  One of the other possessed hosts cackled. “He won’t spill your blood…yet. You better play nice. He won’t care if you’re mangled as long as you can still talk.”

  Brenna stepped from behind the container. “You’re such a sweet talker. How could I resist?”

  Curling her power into a ball, she unleashed hell on them. It took out three of the men in an explosion of light and blinded the others. While they were distracted, Seraph leapt from the ceiling, decapitating two before he hit the floor as Brenna blasted a fourth. The two demons who were left were smart enough to flee.

  “That was too easy,” Seraph said. The rush of adrenaline was tainted by remorse as she stared at the human bodies sprawled across the room. She hated killing hosts.

  Just then the heavy iron door slammed shut. The click of the lock echoed around them.

  Brenna watched in horror as a thick cloudy substance began to pump into the room from the smaller vents. Her senses recognized the Quietus immediately. Pain streaked through her chest as she struggled to breathe. Seraph grabbed her as she fell, his calls for her to get up muffled and distant. As the darkness overwhelmed her senses, her last thoughts were of Gray.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Brenna woke cold and alone.

  Her body was numb. Thick cords secured her to a surgical table. She was still dressed and trapped in a hospital room of sorts, presumably still in the compound, but she could be anywhere.

  Slowly she tried to move her arms, but there was no slack in the rope. The same was true for her legs. She tried not to panic. She had freed herself from worse.

  Shadows danced on the aqua tiled walls. She’d been out a while. The small bit of sky she could see through the boarded window was dark. The only source of light here was a thick black candle that sat on the rickety window ledge. A rusty metal table sat within an arm’s reach of where she lay. On it there was a syringe filled with amber liquid and a scalpel. She had no intention of finding out what they planned to do with either.

  She narrowed her gaze on the candle’s flame, knowing she only had one shot. She drew upon the flame and called its fire towards her. The rope on her right wrist singed and burned. It weakened the restraint enough to allow her to pull free. As soon as the feeling returned to her hand, she undid the other restraints.

  Her legs were like jelly on the dirty linoleum floor. The gas they had piped through the ventilation shaft had left her unstable and weak. Black spots danced in her vision as she moved through the obstacle course of broken glass and metal shards.

  Demons were powerful enemies, but they weren’t good housekeepers.

  She needed to find Seraph, then whoever had betrayed them and rip out their spleen.

  Footsteps rang in the distance. She pressed against the wall out of habit, knowing she was still in plain sight. It was surprising they had left her alone. She scanned the room for a weapon. A glint of silver caught her eye. A stack of blades, some she recognized as her own, lay on top of a wobbly wooden cabinet. She slipped across the room and grabbed a few of the daggers.

  Two men entered the room as she finished strapping one of the blades to her ankle. Their eyes were focused on the bed where she had been restrained, so at first they did not see her. She’d gotten behind them when the first man turned.

  He was built like a football player and fast, but Brenna was faster. His arm broke under her grasp as she tossed him aside, slamming him into the wall.

  She had nothing against humans, but they were easily broken. If the demons ever discovered how to possess deviants, there would be no stopping them. That had to be what the experiments were about.

  The other man was no fighter. His white lab coat swung around his legs, as he backed slowly toward the other man. She would have tied him up and left him, but he dropped down and picked up the other man’s knife. She cursed beneath her breath. Now she had no choice but to fight.

  Brenna advanced, but found her feet were frozen. She glanced down and saw cords writhing from the floor to wrap around her feet and ankles. She had underestimated her opponent. Apparently the demons had mages in their corner as well.

  She tried a counter spell. The mage took advantage of her distraction and struck her in the side of the head with some kind of heavy impact spell.

  She fought past the pain and finally destroyed the restraints, ducking a small fireball as she rolled right up to him.

  Her dagger sank deep into his chest and the spell pressed into the blade ignited. He smelled of ash and brimstone. He had been doing more than just experimenting with the dark arts. The mage shrieked, his hands pulled the blade from his chest, dropping it to the floor. He raised his palms to the sky and began to chant. Before Brenna could attack, black smoke rose from the floor at his feet, hiding him from sight.

  Lightning flashed through th
e smoke.

  Something had to be feeding him power. The stink of black magic swirled in the air around them. But he also had a mortal injury. No one could sustain that amount of magic while facing death.

  Ducking another fireball, she palmed the blade tied to her ankle and swiped it across her forearm to free her inner reserves. She flicked the blood covered knife toward him, charged with a nullification spell.

  The smoke vanished. Stripped of the magic that was sustaining him, the mage fell to his knees, then on his side. The light in his eyes slowly died. When she checked the body she realized he was human after all. The revelation was startling. No human mage should have been able to sustain that amount of power.

  If the demons had found a way to allow humans to withstand the rigors of powerful supernatural energy without possession, it could very well change everything.

  She left the bodies where they lay and left. Smeared blood decorated the white walls of the corridor. The room she had been held in was soundproofed. No one had come to check on the commotion. Now she heard the tortured screams of the demons past victims. The psychic echoes followed her through the compound. They seemed to come from every direction. Every room. Every kind of normal and deviant had been here at some point, and died.

  Her hands shook with rage. The demons would pay in spades.

  Seraph would not be among the voices. He would never utter a sound of pain regardless of what was done to him if he was alive. He would have to be found the hard way.

  She touched the bump on her head, wincing as pain shot down her neck. Her fingers came away filled with blood. The wound should have been at least partially healed, so whatever the mage had hit her with had been more than just a hard blow. Or perhaps it was the lingering effects of the Quietus. The healing did little against it and her vision was beginning to darken.

  It was imperative to find Seraph as soon as possible. Reaching out with her mind, she searched for his life force.

  Nothing.

  It alarmed her she was unable to touch Seraph’s energy. Losing him would be like losing a brother. Maybe there was too much interference. Maybe he was still alive.

  She moved down the hallway and peered inside each room. Although they were empty, the residual energy from the suffering endured was thick in the air. The taint increased her nausea and she stumbled. She hoped Gray and the others were safe back at the cabin. She didn’t have enough energy left to save anyone else, maybe not even herself.

  She methodically traveled through each hallway, but there was still no sign of Seraph. It didn’t surprise her they had separated them. They had clearly infiltrated the IRT, so they probably realized how powerful Seraph was.

  She leaned against the wall and laid her head back against the cold tile. It was all she could do to stay alert. The pain continued to course through her regardless of what spell she used to numb it.

  She took a deep breath and pushed off the wall. As she moved, there was a stir in her consciousness. She recognized Gray’s presence in her mind. Too weak to send words, she managed to send him an image of her location. Common sense screamed at her to remain where she was and wait on Grey.

  But she never paid attention to common sense.

  When she opened her mind to allow Gray inside, several vampires had climbed in as well. Their cries for help slammed inside her, impossible to ignore. She was too weak to shut them out.

  But the sounds allowed her to pinpoint their location. If it was possible to save them, she had to try. As she got closer, she felt their pain like a blanket around her psyche. She stumbled under the weight of their emotions but finally forced them out.

  Cautious she turned down the hall where the vamps were being held. She sensed no guards present nearby. The vamps had to be in terrible shape for the demons to have abandoned them unguarded in a lone corridor.

  She opened the door and stepped inside. The sight that greeted her would be forever seared into her memory. Rotted wooden boards covered the four windows, giving a greenish tint to the light in the room. Every inch of space had been packed with gurneys. Many overlapped, leaving the beds tilted and unstable. A single path, only wide enough for one person, wound through the beds. The vampires were strapped down. Dull skin on pitifully shrunken frames. Tubes connected to a large apparatus in the center of the room disappeared into their skin. With every pulse of the machine, more blood drained from their bodies flowing back into its large mechanical belly.

  Brenna cautiously walked up to it. The machine was foreign to her, in every possible way. She had no idea how shut it down. Thankfully, after several moments of searching, she found a large switch. It seemed to work. The low rumble of the equipment dissipated and silence filled the room.

  Satisfied the machine was disabled, she approached the vampires. Despite their condition, she hesitated to release them. Once they got to their feet, they would try to drain the nearest food source—her.

  The vampire closest to her was a woman. Her head was thrown to the side, eyes closed. Her extremities shook with her body’s effort to push what little blood remained to her organs. It would be only a matter of moments before her body shut down. Brenna gently placed her hands on both sides of the woman’s face.

  “I’m here to help,” Brenna whispered. Her words echoed in the silent room causing some of the stronger vamps to turn their heads.

  The hope in their eyes was heart wrenching. It would be impossible to save them all herself. She could only get them on their feet and try to move them from the compound. If they came under attack, she wouldn’t be able to protect them.

  Sliding her athame across her wrist, she watched the blood well up then slowly fall across the woman’s lips. The vampire gasped as the liquid hit her tongue, her arms strained against her restraints. Brenna cut her off, then turned to the next victim.

  But the vampire did not want to let Brenna go. With fresh power she snapped the restraints on the table and lunged. Brenna slammed her back down, her blade at the other woman’s throat.

  “Don’t make me regret helping you.” She grabbed a vial from the table beside the bed and filled it with her blood. “Help me feed the others, so we can get out of here.” She handed the vile to the woman, who took it eagerly. “One sip each. No more. If you drink it, I will kill you.”

  Weak from the sudden blood loss, Brenna fed the others just enough to get them to their feet. She was healing her wrist when Gray called to her. She felt his anger as they linked. She gave him a quick mental image of her location then broke the connection. There was no time to argue with him. The vampires she had fed were standing by their beds like lost feral puppies in desperate need of direction. There were almost twenty of them, too few to mount a good defense and too many to hide.

  For a moment she stood in the doorway, considering her options. Her priority had to be Seraph. Claudius’ people were strong in their own right. They would have to make it out alone.

  One of the older vampires, a beast of a man with a beard that nearly touched the floor, stepped forward. “All you have to do is tell us the way. Your blood allowed me to connect with Master Claudius.”

  Remembering the maps Seraph had shown them, she laid out an escape route for them. The vampire gave a small nod then gathered the others. They disappeared down the hallway. She just hoped they would make it.

  When she could no longer hear their footsteps, she moved further down the hall. “Seraph, where are you?” she whispered. Seeking with her mind, she stumbled upon a faint trace of energy. She couldn’t place its location, but sensed the direction.

  She had reached the very last room in the hall when she felt it. The same muted surge of power. She pressed her hand against the rusty metal door and sent her power seeking inward. Just as she found what she thought to be Seraph, something stirred at her back. Running on instinct, she palmed her dagger and struck out at the shadows. Her arm was caught and someone rammed her up against the wall.

  “Nice to see you too.” Gray released her. “Where’s
Seraph?”

  “I think he’s in there.” She motioned to the door as her heart slowed back to normal. “He’s weak, but still alive.”

  “Any guards?” “Four. Two demons and two humans,” she said.

  “I sent the others back, they’re providing cover so your prisoners can get out.”

  “So we’re on our own?”

  Gray nodded, freeing his katana. “Let’s get him.” Without warning, he kicked open the door and stormed inside.

  The first guard attacked Gray as Brenna caught sight of Seraph. He was bound and gagged, strung up like a slab of beef, wounds trailed across his taut skin. Relieved he was still alive, Brenna turned her attention to the other guard. The demon was outside of its host. She needed to weaken it before the blade could work and shouted a simple freeze spell. Ice coated its body, slowing it down enough to even the odds. She slashed at its scaly flesh with her blade. Toxic smoke rose from the wounds she left on it. The demon lunged and grabbed Brenna by the forearm, pulling her off balance. Even now, the beast’s strength was incredible.

  Brenna pulled back, but couldn’t break free. She pulled out a second blade with her other hand and slashed the arm held by the demon. Her blood rolled down her arm and across the creature’s hand, overwhelming the demon’s senses. The beast howled as she thrust the blood soaked blade into the demon’s heart, chanting the curse that would banish it. The demon burst into a ball of light then vanished. That was it. She didn’t have enough power left to light a candle now.

  Gray had vanquished his demon just as quickly and still had some fight left in him. Two cowering humans were pressed against the far wall. Their hands had been tied behind their back with plastic zip ties and their legs had been bound together. Gray cut down Seraph, who groaned as he was lowered to his feet. Brenna rushed to his side.

  Power spilled from Seraph’s wounds. “Can you walk on your own?” she asked as she slashed the restraints around his legs.