Beyond The Darkness: The Shadow Demons Saga, Book 9

by Sarra Cannon

  “You talk about her like you know her,” I said.

  “I do.” He ran a hand through his hair. “She’s the one who helped me create Venom. Sabine has a similar power to the emerald priestess in that she can manipulate time, but her power is a thousand times stronger than Priestess Evers.”

  “Wait. She created Venom?” I asked.

  “In order for Venom to be a safe haven for all creatures to meet, I needed it to exist outside of the normal bounds of time and space,” he said. “I needed for there to be entrances to the club all around the world, making it accessible to everyone, no matter whether they were in France or the United States.”

  “I thought you said she was dangerous, but you obviously survived working with Sabine,” I said. “How bad can it be?”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t go to Sabine asking her for a favor,” he said. “Sabine owed me for something I’d helped her with a long time ago. I’d saved her from a vampire, and I gave her a place to stay while she healed. She owed me, and creating Venom was her repaying me.”

  “Still, I have to try, Rend. I have to get back to Harper somehow,” I said. “This fairy can make a portal for me. You heard her. She said it took almost no power for her to make a portal into the past. She was looking at me when she said it. I think she wants to help me.”

  “Jackson, Sabine never wants to help anyone just for the sake of helping,” he said. “If she’s willing to help you, then she must want something from you.”

  “She doesn’t even know me,” I said. “What could she possibly want from me?”

  Rend shook his head. “She doesn’t know you, Jackson, but she’s met Harper.”

  I stopped dead in my tracks. “What? You didn’t tell me this before. When did she meet Harper?”

  “At Venom,” Rend said. “When she came looking for me in 1951, I was just getting Venom started. Sabine was there the day Harper showed up. She was completing the Paris door when Harper walked into Venom. I was passed out cold when they met, but she was there.”

  “Why didn’t you tell Harper about Sabine?” I asked. “Maybe she could have opened a portal home for her. She could have walked straight through, Rend.”

  He shook his head. “That’s not how her magic works,” he said. “She can manipulate time and space, but there are limits to her power. She can open a portal into the past, but she can’t open portals into the future. She wouldn’t have been able to help Harper even if I’d asked her to.”

  “Dammit,” I shouted, kicking at the fountain with my boot. “I have to get to her, no matter what it takes, Rend. You have to see that. No matter what this fairy wants from me, I’ll give it to her. I don’t care.”

  “You say that now, but Sabine, she’s tricky,” he said, gripping my shoulder. “Sometimes what she gets you to agree to can be heartbreaking. Life changing in the worst ways. You may not even fully understand what you’re agreeing to until it’s too late.”

  “I’m done arguing about it,” I said, pulling my arm away. “She said she would cast the portal for the Order and go home. Do you know where she lives? That’s all I need to know.”

  “Jackson—”

  “No,” I said. “My mind is made up, Rend. You’re either going to help me or you better get out of my way.”

  Rend sighed. “You’re the most stubborn demon I ever met in my life.”

  “You can’t tell me you wouldn’t do the same thing if it was Franki,” I said.

  Rend looked me straight in the eye. “I understand. I really do,” he said. “But I joined the Brotherhood of Darkness thinking they could help me save my sister. I foolishly let them turn me into this abomination, twisting my true demon power into something evil and unbearable. And in the end, she still died in my arms, Jackson. Making deals with the devil never turns out the way you want it to. In the end, it always comes back to haunt you.”

  I turned away from him, not wanting to see the pain in his eyes.

  Yes, he had made a bad deal with a group of vampires. He had trusted them when he shouldn’t have, but he had still managed to do something incredible with his life. He’d made a deal with the devil and survived it.

  I had to believe I would, too.

  “I don’t have a choice, Rend. It’s the only way to bring her home. I have to try.”

  Rend moved to stand beside me, and we stared at the garden together, the weight of the moment weighing heavy on both of us.

  “I don’t know where to find her,” he said. “But I know someone who does.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “How fast do you think you can get to New Orleans?”

  The Swamp Of Nightmares

  Jackson

  “Get back to the castle,” I told Rend. “Check on Mary Anne and Essex. If they’ve recovered the emerald ring, reach out to me through the communication stones. And let me know if there’s any word from Andros about my brother.”

  With any luck, we’d all be back together by morning.

  “I will,” he said. “Jackson, please be careful.”

  “I promise,” I said. “Hopefully next time you see me, Harper will be standing at my side.”

  Rend nodded and backed away as I prepared to shift.

  It took only a few hours to get to New Orleans, and by the time I pulled up to the old Victorian mansion marked with the numbers 1912, the sun was just starting to set. I landed on the back steps of the house and took a deep breath.

  I hadn’t been here in years, but I knew I could count on the demon inside to help me. He was an old friend, and I trusted him with my life.

  I knocked on the door, my heart pounding.

  Please, let him be home.

  He answered quickly, and his face broke out in a smile as he pushed the door open to welcome me inside.

  “To what do I owe this honor, old friend?” he asked, holding his hand out to me.

  “Hello, John,” I said, clasping his hand and meeting his eyes. “I’m sorry to show up like this unannounced, but I need a favor.”

  “Anything for you,” he said. He offered me a cup of coffee, but I shook my head, my heart racing at the thought of what I was about to do.

  John Pierce was an ancient demon. He’d come to the human world a century before me, and he knew this area of the country better than anyone.

  “I need your help,” I said. “I need you to take me to see Sabine.”

  The cup in his hand crashed to the floor, and a girl came running in from the next room.

  “John? Is everything o—”

  She stopped mid-step, her eyes locked on my face. She wore a glamour that had turned her hair brown and her features plain, but I could see through it to the real woman beneath the trick. Her blonde hair hung in curls around her face, and her blue eyes lit up in surprise.

  “Hello, Allison,” I said, a slight smile touching my lips. I was glad to see she was alive and well.

  She touched her hair. “How did you know it was me?” she asked.

  “He can see through glamours,” John said. “It’s one of his many talents. Not the least of which is knowing how to scare the crap out of me. What do you mean you need me to take you to see Sabine? No one goes there willingly, Jackson.”

  “I have to go,” I said. “As soon as possible. I need her help.”

  “She won’t help you,” he said. He waved his hand over the broken cup and it rose into the air, piecing itself back together as if it were brand new. “Not without a price.”

  “At this point, I’ll pay anything she asks if she can help me get to Harper.”

  He shook his head. “She’s a trickster,” he said. “She plays the long game, Jackson, and if she does agree to help you, she’ll ask way too much in payment. It’s not worth it.”

  I looked from him to Allison, easily seeing how much they cared for each other. I had known this demon a very long time. Long enough to know that whatever he felt for her was different this time. He truly cared for her. Loved her, maybe.

  “What if someo
ne took Allison away from you?” I asked. “What if you knew she had been tortured beyond what anyone should have to endure? If you knew that at this very moment, assassins were being sent to seek her out and kill her? Would you risk a trip to see Sabine?”

  Allison sat down at the large oak table that took up most of the kitchen. “Oh God, Harper,” she said. “You still haven’t found her?”

  I shook my head. “I know where she is, but I can’t get to her without Sabine’s help, so unless you know someone else who can open a portal into the past, I’m out of options.”

  Allison sighed, and a tear rolled down her cheek. John went to sit at her side, running his hand along her back.

  Allison had been in Harper’s class at Peachville High School, and even though Allison had not openly joined our fight against the Order back then, she had been smart enough to get away from Peachville when the gate was closed. She’d been on the run from the Order ever since.

  Most of the recruits from the sapphire gates had been rounded up a few months ago by the emerald priestess and killed in a mass-sacrifice so Priestess Evers could cast the spell that had kept the entire world frozen in time. Allison was lucky to be alive, and from the way he was looking at her now, I was sure John understood the kind of fear I was currently facing.

  “John,” I said. “Please.”

  He whispered something in Allison’s ear and she nodded. She took his face in her hands and kissed his lips softly. “Be safe,” she said.

  “Where’s the fun in that?” he said, laughing.

  She sighed and stood up, making her way over to me and wrapping her arms around me. It was so unexpected, I stiffened before finally hugging her back.

  Allison and I had never known each other very well, but she obviously cared about Harper, and that made her a friend to me.

  “Be careful,” she said.

  She touched John’s arm tenderly as she passed by him, and then she walked out of the room. A few seconds later, I heard her footsteps on the stairs.

  John stood up and grabbed a set of keys off the kitchen counter.

  “You’re crazy to do this, you know,” he said. He glanced toward the hallway. “But you’re right. If it was Allison who was missing, and I felt I had nowhere else to turn, I’d pay whatever price the fairy asked just for a chance to get her back.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “We’ll see if you’re still thanking me in a few days,” he said.

  I followed him out to his car, and he drove me far outside the city limits of New Orleans. I watched the landscape change from concrete and skyscrapers to wetlands and deserted backroads.

  Two hours later, he pulled down an overgrown path and stopped just shy of a thick forest. The trees here were covered in dark green vines that wrapped around them like blankets, their roots were drenched in swampy water.

  “We have to walk from here,” he said. He laughed and studied his shoes that I was sure cost more than my entire closet combined. “I should have changed clothes first.”

  We travelled a rough pathway through the trees, standing on solid ground at first. As we got deeper in though, we had to trudge through water as deep as our knees with nothing but the moon to guide our way through the dark swamp.

  “Should I be worried about getting my leg chomped off by an alligator?” I asked, stepping carefully.

  John laughed. “Not here,” he said. “The gators don’t dare come this close to the Swamp of Nightmares.”

  “What?” I asked, a chill running through me.

  “That’s where Sabine lives,” he said. “Nice name, huh?”

  I definitely didn’t like the sound of any place with nightmare in the name, and I wondered exactly what I was getting myself into. There was no turning back now, though.

  About two miles into our walk, a shimmering light appeared in the distance.

  “This is as far as I go,” John said. “Just follow the light.”

  I nodded, my heart racing as I stared at the entrance to the Swamp of Nightmares. “Thank you for bringing me here. I owe you one.”

  “I’ll wait for you as long as I can,” he said. “And Jackson?”

  “Yes?”

  “Whatever you see in there, it isn’t real,” he said. “She’ll try to get into your head and find your worst nightmares. She’ll do everything she can to break you open and tear you apart. Don’t let her win.”

  “I won’t,” I said, shivering as a strange wind blew through the cypress trees.

  “Good luck, my friend.”

  I nodded and turned toward the shimmering light, walking slowly toward the unknown. From what John had told me on the drive over here, many people—demon and human alike—had come to this swamp, seeking Sabine’s help in desperate times. Most of them never found their way out.

  I had no idea what I would face once I passed through the light, but I knew that I was willing to face anything for the hope of finding Harper before she was lost to me forever.

  As I stepped closer to the entrance, its sparkling rays within my reach, I turned to look at John Pierce. He raised a hand, and I waved back, then stepped through the portal into the Swamp of Nightmares.

  How Heroes Were Made

  Aerden

  My heart was shattered, and even though I could feel my friend’s spirit and power inside of me, I couldn’t believe he was really gone. I replayed our battle in my head a thousand times, each time trying to figure out how it could have gone differently, and each time still seeing him there, bleeding to death in my arms.

  Potions were strictly forbidden in the games. Competitors could use their own magical abilities, but any enhancements were supposed to be an immediate disqualification.

  And yet, no one had stepped forward to stop what the other team had done.

  In my mind, that could only mean one thing. Someone in power had set us up on purpose.

  I closed my eyes, seeing Kael’s smug smile so clearly that I felt I could reach out and strangle him now with my bare hands.

  I had no doubt that I was the real target in today’s battle. My two opponents thought they had more time to murder Trention and then come back for me. It was supposed to be torture on two levels. Make me watch my dear friend die first, and then end my life, too.

  Something inside me had been strong enough to break free of whatever magic that potion contained, but it was too late. By the time I reached him, Trention was already dying, and deep in my heart, I knew he was right. Even if the shamans had taken him away to a healing room, he would have then been asked to give his spirit in service to the king.

  How had we gotten to this point? How had this great kingdom turned into such a horrible, hopeless place?

  I let my head fall into my hands as I sat at the edge of Trention’s bed. I was such a fool.

  This whole time, I had believed there was still honor in fighting for my freedom. I had believed that if I was just strong enough to win and to prove myself out there on the battlefield, that I would be rewarded with freedom.

  Now, I could see the truth.

  I was never meant to survive these games.

  Tomorrow’s finale would be set up so that there would be no chance of me winning. Whether my opponent would have potions or some other trick up his sleeve wasn’t the point. Whoever was truly running these games wanted me dead, and no matter what I did, they were never going to set me free.

  Maybe their plan was that even if I managed to win for the benefit of the crowd, they would still usher me into some room where I would be forced to lay down my life for a king who clearly wasn’t himself these days.

  But no matter how many times I went through the possibilities for tomorrow’s fight, I couldn’t figure out how to escape it. I had volunteered for these games, and in doing so, I had signed my own death warrant.

  Short of fighting almost the entire king’s guard to try to get out of the city before they killed me, I couldn’t think of a single solution.

  I had been stupid to believe
they would ever let me go.

  Deep in the darkness of my cell, I knelt at the side of my bed and prayed for strength to face the day to come.

  Everything I had been through, everything I had overcome, was all down to this final battle. All this time, I had convinced myself that it was freedom I was after. Freedom that I wanted more than anything.

  I wanted to be free from these chains. Free from the voices that still echoed in my head after a century of slavery. I wanted to be free to use my own power and to seek my own happiness.

  But what I’d come to realize in the hours since Trention’s death was that freedom was not something to be given by another. It was not something granted to you simply because the chains that had held you were removed.

  Because even after I’d been released from the sapphire gate that had held me for so long, a part of me had still been a slave to that pain. I had allowed myself to relive it every night for months. I had allowed the memories of my past to trap my power inside of me. To dull my own magic.

  In the end, freedom was a choice.

  Choosing to be free didn’t mean that the pain would go away. It wouldn’t loosen the physical chains around my hands and ankles.

  It meant that no matter what I had been through and no matter what situation I had yet to face, I would be free to make my own choices. To be the demon I knew I needed to be.

  My original master had not been the Order of Shadows. It had been fear itself.

  Fear drove me from this castle, and I had been its slave, refusing to stand up and open my heart to the one person I loved more than life itself.

  My pain was of my own making, and as difficult as it was, it was time I faced the truth. I had blamed others for far too long. I had been a coward.

  But tomorrow, I would stand as a hero.