The Shattered Dark

by Sandy Williams

  Naito seems oblivious to its beauty. He doesn’t give the city so much as a glance as he releases Trev’s arm and brushes past me on the narrow trail. I follow him. The fae follow behind me.

  It’s not a bad climb at first. It’s gorgeous here, and the tall grass on either side of the trail seems to soak in the moonlight. The bright, vigorous green darkens when the trail veers left, heading into a copse of pine trees. Even though I know we need to be watching for vigilantes and remnants, it’s difficult not to be captured by the tranquility of the setting. The Realm is exotic and beautiful, but there are so many places in my world that are the same, so many places worth visiting.

  I’m not sure how far we have to hike. Aren had to visit a stone-seller to get us to this location. The palace didn’t have one for Boulder in the archives. I guess we’re lucky it brought us to the west side of the city. If it had deposited us on the east side, we’d have a much longer way to go.

  “We’re heading up there,” Naito says after a while, pointing up and to the left. Despite the size of the three-storied building, I wouldn’t have noticed it if the lights from Boulder weren’t reflecting off its tall windows. It looks like an old resort, one that probably went bankrupt in the recession a few years back. The green, sloping roof and wooden façade act almost as camouflage, making the building blend in with the deciduous trees surrounding it.

  The path beneath my feet steepens. I’m in decent shape, but my legs begin to burn, and the thinning oxygen is making my breaths come in quick, shallow gulps. I concentrate on keeping a steady pace and distract myself by trying to spot the ground squirrels that I keep seeing scurrying through the grass or across one of the big white boulders that we pass. They’re marmots, I think, and even though they look nothing like Sosch, they remind me of the kimki anyway with the way they dart from crag to crag or sit on their haunches, blinking at us with mildly curious expressions.

  I keep climbing, letting my sketchbook hang behind me. It knocks against my butt with every step I take until we finally hit more level ground. Nakano’s compound is about half a mile away. The building Naito pointed out from below isn’t the only one here. Two others, both smaller but with the same green roofs, are nestled side by side farther back from the mountain’s edge. Naito’s father chose a beautiful location for his compound. I have to give him that.

  When we’re within a few hundred yards of the main building, I grow paranoid about the fae’s chaos lusters. They’re wearing long sleeves beneath their jaedric armor, but their faces and hands are uncovered, and even with the moonlight, the blue lightning looks phosphorescent and bright.

  And it’s becoming more erratic the closer we get to the compound. Nakano must be running a ton of tech inside.

  We walk along the edge of the tree line for as long as possible then Naito and Aren kneel in the foliage. The lights are off, and there’s no movement inside the building as far as I can see.

  I crouch by Aren’s side. “Do you think we beat the remnants here?”

  “It’s possible,” he says.

  “But unlikely,” Naito adds. “They don’t have a city to defend. They could have fissured out the second Lee and Paige told them about the serum.”

  “They would have to find a stone-seller to get here, too, though.”

  Naito shrugs. “Their stone-seller might have had an imprinted location even closer than ours.”

  I take in a breath, then slowly let it out. The only way we’re going to know for sure is to get in there.

  “Will there be an alarm?” I ask, wanting to know just how fast this search of ours is going to have to be.

  “I can get us in,” Naito says.

  That’s not quite an answer to my question.

  Naito straightens, then says to Aren, “You should stay here. My father has made this place unpleasant for fae.”

  “We’ll be okay,” Aren says, standing as well.

  “No, you won’t be. You’re already feeling the tech. You step inside that building, and you won’t be able to think. He has a low-level electric current flowing through the walls, and the signals he broadcasts—they’re designed to affect fae. The compound will let you walk in, but it might not let you walk out.”

  God, he makes the place sound sentient.

  “What if the vigilantes haven’t left?” Aren asks. “What if the remnants show up looking for the serum?”

  “If the remnants come in, they’ll be just as crippled as you would be,” he says, turning his attention back to the main building. “And if the vigilantes haven’t left, McKenzie and I will take care of them.”

  His voice is as cold as the In-Between, and goose bumps break out across my skin. I don’t have to guess what he means by “take care of them.” He fully expects me to kill a vigilante if we come across one.

  Aren’s looking at me, watching for a reaction. I don’t give him one. I keep my expression and my voice carefully neutral, and say, “I have my dagger. We’ll be fine.”

  “If you want to help us,” Naito says, “check out the residences.” He nods toward the compound’s other two buildings.

  Aren doesn’t take his eyes off me. I’d feel more comfortable with him at my back, but I’m trusting Naito on this one. If he thinks going inside that main building is dangerous for the fae, then I don’t want Aren going in. If something happened to him…

  Just the possibility causes my throat to tighten up, making it hard to draw in air. Losing him would crush me. There’s no doubt about that.

  My fear is mirrored in his eyes.

  “We’ll make it through today,” I tell him, and I don’t know if my words are meant to reassure him or to reassure myself.

  His jaw tightens, but he focuses on Naito, and says, “You have ten minutes. Then I’m coming in.”

  “Make them long minutes,” Naito says, setting off across the clearing.

  Long minutes, I think as I jog after him. Not a chance. The fae have good internal clocks when things are calm, but when they’re waiting on the shit to hit the fan, they’re as impatient as two-year-olds. We’ll be lucky if we have five minutes before he comes in after us.

  Miraculously, Naito and I reach the door of the main lodge without any hiccups. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a set of keys. He selects one, then slides it into the lock.

  “You have a key to this place?” I ask quietly.

  “No.” He grabs his dagger, then, keeping it safe in its scabbard, he hits the end of the key with his pommel three times.

  It’s so fucking loud, but I don’t see any movement from inside. A quick check to my right, and the other two buildings look quiet and still as well. So why do I feel like we’re being watched?

  It takes another two knocks for the key to turn. I have no idea how he did that, but I just tighten my grip on the strap of my sketchbook as Naito pushes the door open. Once we’re inside, Naito goes straight to an alarm pad. He reaches up to type in the code, but freezes, his finger hovering above the buttons.

  “It’s not on,” he says.

  My heart hammers in my chest. “We need to know if the serum is gone.”

  He nods. “This way.”

  I follow him through the main room of the lodge, though it’s hard to see that this place was once a resort. Only a wet bar in the back corner, the wide, thick wooden beams on the vaulted ceiling, and the huge stone fireplace toward the front of the room indicate its history. The rest of the area is taken up by long, plastic tables. On top of them are about a dozen flat-screen computers. They look out of place here, especially with the piles of old books in the back of the room. They’re in tall stacks on the floor and on a sofa pushed up against the wall. I read one of the titles as we pass by, Grennan’s Guide to Faery, and want to laugh. The fae are nothing like the winged creatures little girls dream of meeting.

  Naito moves into a smaller room in the back of the lodge, but I pause in its doorway, looking back at the computers. The screens are black, but they’re plugged in and, if the little gre
en lights are any indication, they’re on.

  I walk to the nearest one. Move the mouse.

  A box pops up, asking for the password.

  I type in “vigilante” because, yes, I’m that uncreative. Plus, I’m stalling. Thinking. The details of how to make the serum might be on the hard drives. What other research could be here? Is it worth taking with us?

  “Hey, Naito,” I say, entering the next room.

  “What?” he asks, but I don’t answer immediately. He’s standing in front of a safe, twisting the knob to the right, back to the left, and back to the right again. And again when it doesn’t work. But that’s not what’s caught my attention. This room has been converted into a laboratory. Beakers are held in metal clamps, petri dishes sit beneath microscopes, and plastic tubing runs between bags of clear liquid and glass flasks. In short, this room looks like a fully equipped medical lab minus the sanitation.

  “McKenzie?” Naito stops what he’s doing to look at me.

  “Do you know the password for the computers?” He acted like he could disarm the alarm with a code, and he obviously has at least some hope of guessing the combination to that safe, so maybe his father is overconfident and hasn’t changed any of the vigilantes’ codes.

  Turning back to the safe, he says, “I might be able to guess it, but it’ll take too long to…Finally.”

  He opens the safe.

  I move forward, trying to see inside. “Is the serum there?”

  He’s shuffling through some things. Papers, stacks of money, more papers. He shakes his head. “No. It’s not here.”

  Damn. “Is that the only place it could be?”

  Naito closes the door, slips something into his waistband. A gun. I hate guns. It’s not just that they’re lethal and that one of them killed Kelia, but it feels like a bad omen to see this one. This break-in has gone well so far, but that could change in an instant.

  “This is where it’s most likely to be, but no,” Naito says. “My father could have put it somewhere else.”

  His gaze sweeps the room. We don’t have time to do a complete search of the compound—Aren’s probably already losing patience—but we need to be sure we’re not leaving it behind.

  “I think Lee’s already been here,” Naito says. His mouth is pinched. It’s his fault. There’s no denying that. His grief blinded him, and he made a decision that could cost us the war.

  But I can’t find the will to be angry at him. Instead, I say, “We should get out of here.”

  He nods.

  “But we can’t leave the research here,” I add. “Find a match or a lighter or something. We’ll burn the place down.”

  God, I sound like an arsonist, but we have to make sure we don’t miss anything that will allow the vigilantes to easily reproduce the serum.

  I leave Naito to search the lab and head back to the main room. The wet bar catches my attention. There could be a lighter there, and alcohol is flammable. Some of it is, at least.

  Ducking behind it, I start rummaging through the bottles. Most of them are red wines, mostly Pinot Noir, but there’s some vodka and rum, too. Those might fuel a fire. If I can find a matchbook.

  There’s a shallow basket behind one expensive-looking bottle, but it contains nothing but old corks, a simple corkscrew, and some pocket change. Nothing to start a fire with.

  “Did you find any…” Naito’s voice fades out, and he tilts his head to the side. That’s when I hear it, too, a whirling, clicking sound. I look to my left, where a staircase leads down to a lower level.

  “Basement?” I ask quietly.

  “Yeah,” Naito whispers.

  We should just leave—everyone knows not to go into the basement when unidentified sounds are coming out of it—but Naito’s already heading that way. I mutter under my breath and follow him.

  The basement isn’t a dark, gloomy hole. It’s brightly lit and is being used as an office. File cabinets line an entire wall, and a shiny, executive-sized desk is set up in the room’s center. On the end of that desk, a laser printer spits out page after page. It’s responsible for the sounds we’re hearing, and as we reach the bottom of the stairs and turn toward it, a hand reaches up to grab the newly printed documents.

  It’s Lee. He’s sitting on the floor, hunched over a tablet computer. He doesn’t read the pages that just printed; he clenches them in his fist. He hasn’t noticed us yet. His attention moves back and forth between the tablet and the mess of papers that are strewn all around him.

  I glance at Naito. His jaw clenches. The barrel of his gun dips toward the floor.

  His gun. I didn’t see him take it out, but as I watch, he seems to regain his resolve. He reaims at Lee’s head.

  “Naito,” I whisper. Something is obviously wrong with his brother. Lee’s eyes are puffy, bloodshot, and he’s pale.

  Naito lets out a breath and lowers his gun all the way. “Lee.”

  The other human ignores him.

  “Lee,” Naito says again, more emphatically this time.

  Lee finally looks up. “I’ve killed her.”

  “What?” Naito takes a step toward his brother.

  “I’ve killed her.” Lee’s gaze takes in the papers around him. “Paige. The Sight serum is fatal.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  I FEEL THE blood drain from my face. My skin becomes cold and prickly. “Paige is dead?”

  Lee stares at the papers around him, shaking his head. “They’ve all died. Within six months. They just…we’ll just die. I didn’t know. I swear to God, if I had, I wouldn’t have injected her.”

  “Wait, Lee.” I grab his shoulder as I crouch in front of him, shake it to make him meet my eyes. “Is Paige alive now?”

  Tears pool in his eyes. “She’ll never forgive me for this.”

  She’s still alive. I let out a breath, but my chest feels tight and achy. If Lee’s right about this, she won’t be alive for more than six months. Neither will he, but he seems more concerned about Paige than about himself.

  “Where is she?” I ask.

  He runs a hand through his jet-black hair. “With the Court fae. I wouldn’t let her come here with me.”

  “And where are the Court fae?” Naito asks, kneeling beside us. His gun is still in his hand. His finger runs across the trigger guard as if he’s itching to fire the weapon.

  “I’m supposed to meet them at the turnoff.”

  I have no idea how far away that is, but it sounds way too close. We need to get out of here.

  “You have the serum?” Naito asks.

  His brother’s nostrils flare. He turns toward the desk, and as he reaches underneath it, I see a tiny glass vial that’s rolled there. He grips it in his fist, staring down at the milky liquid inside. Then he stands and yells as he slams the vial down on the desk. It shatters, spreading the serum and Lee’s blood across the desk’s surface.

  Well, that’s one way to get rid of it.

  “I told you our father is a heartless bastard,” Naito says, straightening.

  I rise, too, and glare at Naito. Now is not the time for the I-told-you-so’s. His brother may be dying. My friend might be, too, my friend who never, ever should have become involved in the fae’s world. I don’t care if she’s chosen to be on the wrong side of the war, I’m not going to just let her die.

  My gaze falls to the mess of papers at our feet, then to Lee’s tablet computer. I bend down to scoop it up, touch the screen to turn it back on. It’s filled with long paragraphs of text and a few diagrams and scientific equations that I don’t understand.

  “Does this have all the serum research on it?” I ask Lee. He’s staring down at his bleeding hand, which is still flat on the top of the desk.

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know it’s fatal?” I ask him, sliding the tablet inside my sketchbook. The jaedric cover just barely cinches shut.

  “Dad told me.”

  I freeze. So does Naito.

  “Dad’s here?” he asks Lee.

&n
bsp; “I’m here.”

  The gun goes off before I turn. It’s loud and sudden, and I stumble back even though the bullet didn’t hit me. It hit Naito.

  “Naito!” I only make it a step before Nakano reaims at me.

  “No,” he says tersely.

  “He’s your son.” My breath is coming in short, angry intervals. Naito’s lying on the floor, his chest covered in blood. He’s still alive, still conscious, but he needs help. He needs…

  Aren. Naito and I have been in here more than ten minutes, and Aren would have heard the gunshot. He would have rushed in despite Naito’s warning if he was able to.

  If he was able to.

  I feel rage building under my skin. I’m going to kill Naito’s father.

  “You sent the text,” Nakano says. His voice is as cold as his eyes. He’s wearing camouflage, head to toe, and what’s left of his right arm is in a black sling. Kyol severed that arm when the vigilante aimed a gun at me before. He should have killed him, but Naito rushed to his side, trying to save his father. I know he regrets that now.

  “You knew we were coming,” I say, trying to ignore the gun he has aimed at my chest.

  “You put a period at the end of your message,” he says, and I don’t know if the disgust in his voice is because of that punctuation—a stupid, single period I don’t even remember typing—or if it’s because he has to talk to me, a human who colludes with fae. “I sent men to Georgia. And I kept a few here just in case.” He looks at Lee. “Can we use her?”

  Use me? As in, make me give them information about the fae? I glance in Lee’s direction, careful to keep my expression neutral. If Lee says no, that I’m not useful, I’m almost certain Nakano will fire that weapon.

  Lee is still staring down at his brother. Slowly, he looks up. He focuses on me.