Asher was doing this. Using his host body’s magic to hold Bane captive. Had he used it to knock Abbadon out too? He pinned his gaze on me now, scanning and searching for the precious last piece of Merlin’s soul.
Satisfaction was a burning ember in my chest. It was my turn to smile, smug as shit. “Looking for something?”
Asher’s dark brows slammed down over his obsidian eyes. “What have you done? Where is it?”
I shrugged. “Gone.”
“No. That’s impossible. If it was gone, then I’d be in control. I’d be free.” He turned his hands over as if expecting them to yield the answer to his quandary.
I pulled myself to my feet and brushed the dirt off my clothes, focusing on masking the tremble in my hands. This was Merlin, the Merlin, with a tankload of power at his disposal and a shade commander in the driver’s seat. He could probably break my neck with a thought, and the only reason I was still alive was because he needed something from me. Something even I didn’t know the location of, but at least I knew Ambrosius must still be out there somewhere, existing. I needed to play this right.
“What can I tell you? Ambrosius has a mind of his own. We aren’t always joined at the hip.” Let him think I still had access to Ambrosius and knew where he was. Let him believe I had the power to summon him.
Asher’s eyes narrowed. “But you can call him to you? You can speak to him.”
“If I wanted to.” Why did I expect alarm bells to go off at my lie?
He took a measured step toward me, his gaze speculative. “Can you bring him here or not?”
My pulse accelerated. If he found out I’d lost my connection with Ambrosius completely, then I was dead. But light bulbs were going off in my head. A plan formed. It was a shitty, weak plan, but even a shitty, weak plan was better than no plan at all.
I lifted my chin. “I can. But I’m not going to.”
Xavier growled in exasperation. “Commander, she’s bluffing. How do we know that when cutting the connection between the host body and the soul, she didn’t cut her own connection to it?”
Bastard. He needed to keep his stinking mouth shut. My thoughts didn’t play on my face, though. At least I hoped they didn’t. Right now, I needed that poker face real bad.
I lifted my chin and smiled. “You don’t know. You can’t be sure of anything. So, you’re just going to have to take my word for it. If you want Ambrosius, then let Bane and Abbadon go.”
Asher arched a brow. “You’re trying to negotiate with me?” He sounded genuinely surprised. And then the surprise morphed into anger. “You’re trying to negotiate with me?” His voice went up an octave.
“Are you deaf or just stupid?”
In the beat of a breath, he was in my personal space. His hand wrapped around my throat, his perfect face contorted in rage. Yes. This was what I needed. Him, up close and personal, so that I could—
“Commander, no!” Xavier cried out.
But he was too late. I blasted him with power, channeling it into him, and waited for the burn, the cinders, and the screams.
And waited.
His eyes widened, and his mouth twisted in a wince—the only sign that I’d affected him. And then the hand tightened around my throat. “Sorry to disappoint, Miss Harker, but you’ll need a lot more juice than that to hurt me.”
My gut clenched. Plan A had failed. The fucker was too powerful while infused with arcane power. Merlin’s power. But plan B was working, because in this moment, his focus was completely on me. And if there was one thing I’d learned about arcane magic since hanging with Marika, it was that it required focus.
Asher had just lost his.
Bane snapped free with an inhuman roar, smashing into me and ripping me out of Asher’s surprised grasp. He sprinted for the nearest arch.
“Wait! Abbadon!”
His arms flexed around me, but we didn’t stop. We flew straight toward the window and out into the night.
***
So many dead Black Wings, humans, and nephs. In the humans’ case, they’d died a while back, when the shade took them over completely, but the nephs may have been alive and trapped inside their bodies. I’d unwittingly killed them. I needed to tell the others what I’d done. The bodies lay like broken dolls strewn across the clifftop grounds. Malphas, Abigor, and the remaining Black Wings stood dazed and lost amidst the carnage. They’d prepared for battle against their White Wing brothers—a battle that would have taken place in an orderly heavenly fashion. This … this had been anything but.
Ryker slung an arm around my shoulder and pulled me into a hug. “Fucking hell, we thought we lost you.”
“We almost did,” Bane said. “If not for Harker’s quick thinking.” He frowned. “That was your plan, right? To goad him into attacking you and take his focus off me?”
I sighed. “Yes, Bane. That was the plan.” But we’d left Abbadon behind. “The plan wasn’t a complete success, though, was it?”
He shook his head and tucked in his chin. “If we’d stopped for Abbadon, then we’d have lost our advantage. Asher’s magic at close range is powerful, but it’s limited over distance. He confessed as much in a mini-rant. I do believe the shade commander is unhinged. If he ever got his hands on Ambrosius then he’d be unstoppable.”
I glanced up at the tower to the east, where we’d left Abbadon. He was gone now. Asher had taken him. “What will they do with him?”
Bane’s expression tightened. “I don’t know. And dwelling won’t help.”
I closed my eyes and tucked in my chin. Asher had the Black Wing leader, and there was nothing we could do about it. He’d try and use him as a bargaining chip, no doubt, while continuing to build his army. Killing them wasn’t getting us anywhere fast enough. We needed to attack the root of the problem. Cut them off at the knees. An idea bloomed in my mind. They needed hosts to influence our world. So, we needed to take away their supply. It was so stunningly simple it was shocking that we hadn’t been focusing on it all along.
“We have to stop the shades from taking hosts.” I locked gazes with Bane. “We stop them from replenishing their numbers. It’s the only way to fight them. We need to cut off their host supply.”
“Great plan,” Cassie said sarcastically. “And how do you intend to execute it?”
She was wound tight. We all were, so I’d let her tone slide this one time. “I don’t know. But I say we gather everyone: Lupin, Sanguinata, the MED, and Tristan. We tell them the truth, and we get everyone in on solving the problem.”
“Finally.” Ava threw up her hands.
I arched a brow in response to her outburst.
She grinned sheepishly. “It’s the right thing to do.”
When we’d thought we could nip this in the bud without causing panic, then it had been fine to keep it quiet. But it’d been almost two weeks, and now this attack … “We can’t fight the shades alone. We need more soldiers, and we need more brains.”
There was no argument, only a murmur of consent.
Abigor joined us.
I took in his disheveled state, the downturn of his pretty mouth, and the sorrow in his eyes. He’d kidnapped me and held me hostage not too long ago, but it was impossible to hate him right now. Now that he’d lost so many of his comrades, and his friend and commander, Abbadon, had been taken.
I met his gaze and inclined my head in greeting. “We need to formulate a plan to get Abbadon back.”
He took a deep, shuddering breath. “No.”
Had I heard right? “No?”
His smile was tired and laced with sorrow. “We agreed that if one of us was taken we would assume they were dead. We would not negotiate for their life, and we would take no unnecessary risk to liberate them.”
Logic agreed that this was the right move. We couldn’t risk a ton of lives to save one. The threat to our world was too great, and we needed the manpower to stave it off, but my sense of injustice wouldn’t be silent. “We can’t just leave him in their hands.”
/>
Abigor’s eyes lit up with fury. “We can, and we will. Those were his orders, and I will not dishonor him by disobeying.”
That was the difference between us and them. They lived by a code, by orders that could not be circumvented. But the MPD … We’d usually rather die than leave a man behind. Except this time, we had, and my stomach ached with the horror of it.
Abigor broke eye contact with me and addressed Bane. “Our defenses have been breached, our numbers are diminished. If we remain here and are attacked again, then we may not be able to fend off the shades.”
Bane’s jaw flexed. “Our grounds are warded, and we have ample room in the east wing of the mansion.”
Ryker’s mouth turned down, and Orin’s brows flicked up, but it was Cassie who spoke.
“How does it feel to need help, huh?” Her drawl had real bite.
Abigor blinked down at her in surprise. “Excuse me?”
She crossed her arms under her breasts. “You sit here in your fucking clifftop house, just watching shit go down all the time, when you have the power to help. You’re lucky we didn’t do the same to you.”
Abigor’s eyes narrowed, and his lips thinned. “Believe me, sitting back and doing nothing has been the hardest thing we’ve ever had to do.”
Cassie frowned, confused.
They didn’t know the truth about the deal between the White Wings and the Black Wings. They didn’t realize that to interfere in Midnight’s human affairs would mean handing humanity’s free will to the White Wings. Malphas had said we weren’t permitted to tell humans about the deal, but it was time the nephs found out. If we were going to work together, there had to be trust and a level of respect.
It was time to spill the beans. “Cassie, there’s something you need to understand …”
I filled her and the others in. Abigor didn’t try to stop me. There were no humans nearby to eavesdrop. No live ones anyway.
“Are we winning?” Orin asked once I was done. “Which side has the most humans?”
Abigor’s lip curled. “Right now, after all the humans we’ve lost to the shades, the White Wings are in the lead.”
“Fuck!” Ryker hung his head, hands on hips.
“Yes. Fuck is the right word,” Abigor said. “Because the White Wings have proven that they don’t consider the shades their problem. They’re just counting down the days until they can claim their prize.”
“At this rate, there won’t be a prize to claim,” Orin pointed out.
“They have tunnel vision, and with the divine wards they’ve placed around Dawn, there is no way to force them to see the truth.”
The truth? The truth was that in a few months the century would be up and the barriers around Arcadia would come down. The White Wings would get to claim all the humans outside of our little prison, and the shades … the shades would be free. Oh, shit. I met Abigor’s eyes and saw my thoughts reflected there. He inclined his head in acknowledgement. I still hadn’t forgiven him for kidnapping me from Desert Rock, but even I knew when to call a truce. The White Wings were complete idiots.
“So, what do we do?” Cassie asked.
I took a deep breath. “We do what we always do. We stop the shades from taking out any more humans. We fix this.”
Chapter 3
Bane pulled me into the lounge as soon as we entered the mansion. Ryker and Rivers made to follow, but Bane shook his head. Rivers shot me a questioning look, just the merest twitch of an eyebrow, but I knew what it meant—are you okay? Do you need me to stay?
I shook my head behind Bane’s broad frame, and Rivers and Ryker backed up. Ryker didn’t look too happy about it, though. My about-to-fall-flat-on-my face sway probably didn’t help much. Bane slid the lounge doors closed and then headed straight for the drinks tray.
My feet made a beeline for the wingback, and my ass thanked them as soon as it touched leather. Bane handed me a huge measure of whiskey, and I took a large gulp, coughing half the liquid up when it went down the wrong way. Urgh.
Bane patted me on the back none too gently.
I ducked away from him. “Easy. Shit, do you want me to cough up my lungs too?”
He backed up. “Dammit, Harker. Be careful.” He pinched the bridge of his nose.
“I’m fine.” But a peek from beneath my lashes showed that he wasn’t. “I guess you want the full scoop, right?”
He crossed his epic arms across his equally epic chest and tucked in his chin. “You were in contact with Xavier for long enough to take him out. Why didn’t you?” His eyes narrowed. “You can’t let the host body deter you, Harker. Drayton is gone.”
The fact that he was referring to Drayton as Xavier, his shade name, and the fact that he’d called Drayton the host body, wasn’t lost on me. It was his way of mentally distancing himself from the fact that his closest friend was now a vessel for a shade. It was what I’d been doing too, except Bane didn’t know that. It didn’t stop a spark of anger from flaring to life in my chest, though.
I placed my glass on the table and stood up. “If anyone knows what’s at stake here, it’s me. If anyone feels the burden of what’s happening, it’s me. I chose to rip open that veil. I let the fuckers out. I tried to expel Xavier. But it didn’t work, and I was about to kill him, but he told me Drayton was still inside, still holding on.”
His brows shot up and then came down in a look I recognized as his damn-Harker-you’re-a-fool look. “And you believed him.”
“No. Of course not.” I licked my suddenly dry lips. “I delved deeper and I saw for myself.”
Bane’s breathing quickened. “You saw? Drayton is alive?”
I nodded. “I saw his light. He’s still there, Bane. We can save him. We have to.”
Bane began to pace. “But you couldn’t expel Xavier. If you can’t expel him, or kill him without killing Drayton, then there is nothing we can do.”
“I think the shades have a power hierarchy of their own. I think the ones I’ve come up against are lower-level. Most of them have taken minor nephs and humans. But I saw a Lupin there tonight.”
He looked up sharply. “I saw two. No Sanguinata, though.”
“I think the more powerful the shade, the more powerful the host it can claim.”
“Makes sense.” Bane rubbed his chin.
Now was my cue to tell him the rest, and my stomach turned. “There’s more …”
He met my gaze and his expression softened. “Harker, whatever it is, you can tell me.”
“If Drayton is still lingering after all this time, then maybe other nephs who’ve been infected are also still inside their bodies. Trapped. Still alive. We just assumed that if they were attacking us, then, like the humans, their souls must be gone. But Cassie managed to hold on for weeks.” I wrung my hands. “I think by killing the shades, I’ve also been killing nephs.”
Bane closed his eyes. “Fuck.”
My stomach flipped and a queasy sensation filled me. “I can’t risk it anymore. I can’t kill until I’ve checked for the soul.”
Bane tilted back his head. There was silence for a long minute as he thought things through. “There won’t always be time to check. In the heat of battle, you need to do what you must to eliminate the threat. You could risk your life and find out the neph soul is too far gone. They could die anyway.” He looked at me steadily, his violet eyes gleaming in the firelight. It was his I’ve-come-to-a-decision face, which usually ended in an order. “If you get a shot, Harker, you take it. No checking for souls. That’s an order.”
He was ordering me to knowingly kill innocents? “No. I can’t. I won’t.”
“Yes, you will.”
Impotent anger surged up my throat, robbing me of a constructive sentence. “Fuck you, Bane.”
He strode toward me and gripped my arms, lifting me off my feet slightly. “Don’t get it twisted, Harker. I may want you. I may enjoy you, and I may feel things for you that drive me crazy, but you are not my equal. I’m your fucking boss, and whe
n I give an order, I expect it to be followed.”
His face was a contorted mask of rage. A vein pulsed at the base of his throat, and his eyes were bloodshot and crazy. Fear—visceral and real—tightened my vocal cords, even though my brain whispered that he was afraid for me—afraid that I would get hurt if I didn’t follow his ridiculous order.
The door slid open behind me, and Bane’s gaze slipped over my head. “Get out.” He bit the words like they were ice chips.
“I will. But I’m taking her with me.” Rivers’s tone was cold and measured. “Put her down, Bane.” This was a new voice, the one I’d heard in the lair, the voice of the Mind Reaper.
Shit. My vocal paralysis evaporated. “Bane. You need to put me down.”
Bane blinked and looked at me. His gaze flickered over to his hands biting into my flesh. His mouth softened, and he slowly peeled his fingers from my shoulders. My boots hit the ground. His expression shuttered, and he took a step away from me, as if worried about tempting fate. “Get some rest, Harker. We’ll speak about this tomorrow.”
In all the months I’d known him, I’d never lost sight of what he was, who he was, but it had been a while since he’d reminded me, and my legs couldn’t get me out of there quick enough.
***
Rivers had left me at my door, even though his body language had told me it was the last thing he’d wanted to do. Fucked up how I could read them all so easily now. A quick shower washed away the shitty feeling and soothed the bruises blooming on my skin—the reminders of battle.
I stared at my reflection in the misted mirror, hair wet and stuck to my scalp, face beaded with moisture, fresh from the shower. How could I look so normal? How could I look so unaffected after everything that had happened in the early hours of this morning? It was almost seven a.m. and every inch of me screamed for bed, but my mind was a jumble of possibilities.
I’d caused this mess by ripping into the veil with my daggers, and the decision to deal with Asher and the shades without causing panic had been unanimous at the MPD. We’d voted not to tell the MED or the Lupin or Sanguinata. Damn, we’d voted to keep our world in the dark while we dealt with the unknown. But Bane had put his foot down at cutting out the winged. After all, he’d reasoned, it was the winged the shades wanted dead. With the help of Ava and her unit and Marika and her Order, we’d worked round the clock to patrol and look for shade activity and stop it. But I was the only one who could see them, the only one who could hurt them. And that put us at a distinct disadvantage, not to mention how fucking sneaky they were.
Shades of Midnight: an Urban Fantasy novel (Chronicles of Midnight Book 4) Page 2
