Dark Flight (The Shadow Slayers)

by Cassi Carver

Kara quickly sized up the situation. Air smelling strongly of blood. Four armed guards at attention along one wall. Five females huddled together against the other. Three long tables with shrouded figures wrapped in linen upon them. Three? Rachel, Darrinda and who was the third? She almost froze from fear until she realized that the three figures were a similar size. The third wasn’t anywhere near big enough to be Gavin.

  “And you, Julian Mercés…” Brakken strolled into the center of the room and picked up a plum from one of the fruit baskets. He bit into it with his V-shaped teeth, and the pink juice ran down his chin.

  “I find myself wondering why you care,” Brakken continued. “Gavine is a strange boy, so serious since his change. He feels the need to attack his father over ownership of Rachel’s son—even though, in my defense, we’d made a binding agreement that would have held up in Ailexon’s own court. But these are the things parents go through. No one ever said it was going to be easy raising children.”

  “I can’t pretend to care about a child I’ve never met,” Julian answered. “I simply decided the Shadowland would be a better place without you in it.”

  “Ah, so that’s it. You think you can cast me into the Abyss, boy? You?” Brakken shook his head and threw the pit of the plum at Julian’s feet. “You are an infant for our kind, and I’m afraid you’ve seriously misjudged yourself.”

  Kara couldn’t listen to the banter. She had one thing, and one thing alone, on her mind—Gavin. But she didn’t want to come out and admit that they couldn’t locate him. “And Gavin? Did you two decide to part company on the battlefield? Let bygones be bygones?”

  Brakken chuckled. “We’ve only known each other a short time, Kara, but do you truly believe I have ever let a bygone be anything but an opportunity to exact revenge? Don’t feel bad. You and I will get to know each other so much more intimately over the coming years.”

  Julian growled, and Kara felt the power rising in him. “Where is the Mercury Lord?” he demanded.

  “I wouldn’t know,” Brakken answered. “Gavine has always been the independent type. Give him my best when you find him. Tell him I believe we can resolve this if he would simply tell me where he’s stashed Gable Two.”

  Kara caught movement out of the corner of her eye. One of the females was pointedly looking in the direction from which Brakken had come—behind the red curtain. Kara’s claws arched from her fingers and her fangs jutted from her mouth. “Give him to me,” she snarled. “I know you have him here.”

  Brakken waggled his finger at Kara. “Ah, ah, ah. Naughty girl. I don’t take orders from my females. You will need to be taught some manners.”

  Before Kara even realized what Brakken intended, his hand was raised and blue fire shot from his fingertips. But he was forgetting that Kara was no average female anymore. She flashed, materializing behind the curtain and hearing Brakken’s energy sizzling against the stone behind where she’d stood.

  When she turned from the red slash of fabric into the room, what she saw dropped her to her knees. Gavin was stretched out on a black fur rug, his hands and feet bound in thick chains, and to her horror, his skin was shrunken and parched. Only one arrow stuck from his chest, and even positioned through his heart as this one was, it shouldn’t have been enough to make him go unconscious—or heaven forbid, mummify him.

  Then she realized that the arrow was strange, almost glowing, and when she got closer she saw the current rushing through it, as though it was draining the life energy straight from Gavin’s heart.

  “Julian!” she called. “He’s in here! He needs help!”

  Suddenly, the red curtain was torn away and Brakken and Julian were engaged in a dance, their claws tearing and their teeth snapping as they grappled in the air. The clash of their fists sounded like thunder, and pulsing light shot from their enmeshed forms, but Kara didn’t have time to wait and see who won this round.

  She lunged for the arrow in Gavin’s chest and as she wrapped her hand around it, Brakken’s dark and twisted energy spiraled up her arm, shriveling her skin and drying her muscle as it went. It hurt like nothing she could imagine at first and then it simply went numb, like dead flesh no longer connected to her body. Still, she didn’t let go. Actually—she couldn’t let go. Her hand had hardened around the shaft of the arrow like rigor mortis had set in.

  She knew this might kill her, but there was no reason to take Gavin with her. Unable to move her hand or unclench her fist, she threw her whole body into the maneuver, rising to her feet and leaning back so that her entire arm followed.

  The arrow slid from Gavin’s chest with a sickening slurp, and his eyes flashed open. He gasped for air, his head thrashing side to side like he was drowning.

  The energy from the arrow continued to snake up Kara’s arm, drying her shoulder like a piece of beef jerky, but she couldn’t move her hand to release it. When one of Brakken’s females came at her with a sword, Kara’s first thought was oh, shit. She couldn’t fight when she was too busy trying not to die.

  The female made a beeline for Kara, lifting the hilt of the sword, and Kara dodged the blow, rolling from a one-armed somersault into a crouch. Were the women brainwashed? How could they be fighting for that beast?

  “Hold still, Kara Reed!” the woman yelled in her face and brought the hilt of the sword swinging down again. The flashes of light from the black-wings battling just twenty feet away made the woman’s choppy gesture seem like a slow-motion horror film.

  Kara was so shocked she froze for the instant it took for the woman to smash the pommel into Kara’s desiccated fist. And then suddenly, Kara knew what the woman was trying to do. She closed her eyes, not wanting to watch her fingers crack and break under the assault.

  “Destroy it!” shouted another woman. “Crush it, Eva!”

  “I’m trying!” the woman yelled back, and Kara felt the exact instant Eva dislodged the arrow from her grip. Her eyes sprang open as the feeling started to return and suppleness flowed up her arm like a dry sponge soaking up water.

  “Stop, you cad! Stop that!” cried the woman who wasn’t Eva.

  Kara’s head snapped to attention as the woman shrieked in anger. A guard had her around the waist and was trying to fit shackles around her wrists. Kara flexed her hand, making sure she could use it again, and was about to pounce on the guard when another female bounded into the room. With fangs bared, she leaped on the guard’s back and bit into his neck.

  “Help Gavine!” Eva hollered above the clamor of Julian and Brakken raining down blows on each other, then she charged the next guard entering the room. Holy crap. It was like these women were unleashing centuries of bottled-up whoop-ass, and those guards didn’t stand a chance.

  When Kara looked in Gavin’s direction, he was blinking rapidly, as though trying to wake from a heavy sedative. “Kara?” he said when she fumbled with the shackles on his wrists.

  Straining and flexing, she put everything she had into trying to break the shackles open. “Just…another…second,” she grunted, but they didn’t budge.

  “They’re made of will. I can’t flash while they hold me. You’ll need a key.” Gavin glanced at the guard, and Kara was relieved her silver-wing was already sounding more alert. Brakken’s desiccation tricks were scary as hell, but thankfully, they didn’t last long.

  So now she needed a key? She’d get a key.

  Kara surged to her feet and threw herself at the guard who was sparring with Eva. For all the females’ violent fervor, they were nowhere near ready to take on trained guards. Kara met the guard’s face with her right fist and yelped as pain rocketed up her arm. But she’d hit him so hard, his eyes rolled back and he fell flat on the stone floor.

  “He won’t be out for long,” Kara told Eva. “Use those shackles on him.” When Eva fumbled with the shackles hanging from his belt, Kara pointed to the key ring. “The key! I need the key!”

  Eva plucked the ring from his belt loop and tossed it to Kara, just as the guard brought his hand to his head
and groaned. But Kara couldn’t help this time. All that mattered was getting Gavin free.

  “Knock him upside the head, Eva! Use the pitcher or something!” she called over her shoulder as she scrambled to undo the bindings on Gavin’s wrists and ankles. The guard roared and shoved Eva to her ass, and Kara was shaking so hard she had trouble fitting the key into the locks. Gavin’s ankles were free but one wrist was still bound.

  Eva shrieked, running in Kara’s direction, but the guard grabbed her by her hair and forced one arm behind her back in a hold meant to break her arm if she struggled.

  Gavin tugged at his wrist, but when he found it still fastened, he kicked out with his leg instead, whipping his foot out and catching the guard behind the knee. “My wrist, princess!”

  “I know!” Kara quickly assessed the situation, wondering how she was supposed to get Gavin’s final wrist free when his lower half was engaged in an all-out assault on the other man.

  She straddled Gavin, practically sticking her boobs in his face as she reached for his wrist. There was no other way around him, not unless she wanted to get in the path of his flailing feet.

  She couldn’t get the key into the narrow slot of the shackle. “Stop moving!”

  When the guard tried to hogtie Gavin’s feet, he yelled back at Kara, “Not likely!” and kicked the man square in the jaw.

  Finally, Kara felt the key slip into the lock, and she twisted. The shackle snapped open, but the long chain was tangled around Gavin’s wrist. With the shackle open and the power of Brakken’s will broken, Gavin tugged hard on the other end of the chain, yanking it free from where it was bolted to the floor.

  He jumped to his feet with Kara still riding his lap and the chain still swinging from his wrist. She wrapped her hands around his neck and her legs around his waist as he ran at the other man.

  “Do not let Gavine get awa—” Brakken bellowed, but the end of his words was cut off by whatever Julian was presently doing to him. And whatever it was, Kara hoped it hurt like a motherfucker.

  Still clinging to Gavin, Kara felt the swing of his heavy shoulder and the impact of the blow he delivered radiate up his arm, but from behind him, another guard was tossing off an angry female and coming straight at Gavin with a long-sword drawn and ready. Kara tensed. “Behind you! Look out!”

  And the next thing she knew, Gavin’s muscled waist was no longer between her legs, her ass was slamming into the floor, and the warrior was now coming straight for her.

  Just as the man swung his weapon down, arcing toward Kara’s head, Gavin appeared at the man’s other side, clotheslining him on the chain that had held Gavin moments before. He wrapped the chain around the man’s neck and pulled so hard his biceps bunched, and an instant later, the man’s head went rolling past Kara. She couldn’t even say she was sad to see this one go.

  “Kara!” she heard, and it took her a moment to realize the voice belonged to Julian. She looked from Gavin to Julian. Gavin needed her here to subdue the remaining guards, but Julian needed her more. This would never be finished until Brakken was cleansed from this realm like the nightmare he was.

  “Go!” Gavin told Kara, and then he pulled her to him almost violently and kissed her hard on the lips. “I’ll be waiting for you when you’re finished.”

  “Kara!” Julian called again, and she looked to Gavin, expecting him to demand she stay safe, out of harm’s way.

  Instead, he smiled. “You can do this, Kara. Just look at you—you were made to do this.”

  Her wings sprang open and she jetted across the ceiling to where Julian and Brakken were rolling, engaged in an all-out assault. After this many minutes, she expected blood or sweat raining down from them, but they had almost gone misty, putting their physical shells aside and battling at the deepest level of their spirits.

  Kara didn’t know what Julian expected her to do. She’d never contemplated anything as scary as jumping into the middle of a fight between two all-powerful beings. But when Julian’s open palm struck out, grasping for her, Kara knew what she had to do.

  She latched onto his hand and dove straight into the pit of hell.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Everything had been so loud, so chaotic, that when Kara felt the free-fall toward the Abyss, it was almost beautiful in its absolute quiet and simplicity.

  What was this place? The in-between where the two realms intersected or someplace entirely its own? Kara had a feeling it was the latter.

  She felt Brakken thrashing against Julian’s spirit, but she held strong to Julian’s hand as she floated. She felt the battle raging around her—Julian’s fierce determination and Brakken’s vicious struggle—but it didn’t touch her. Her conscious mind told her to be cautious, that the Abyss was a place that consumed, but her spirit had never felt so safe…so at peace.

  If she let it take her, she wouldn’t have to worry anymore. She would never need to fear again. Her heart would never be broken. She would never be betrayed or hurt or confused. She could exist here for all eternity and simply be.

  But she was here for a reason, wasn’t she?

  She had an infinite moment to think about what had brought her here, and she realized that Julian was stronger than any of them had realized—stronger than he knew. He didn’t need her to cast Brakken into the Abyss. And yet her spirit told her she was here for a purpose. What else was there?

  Struggle, she heard. But she wasn’t here to struggle. No. Julian was struggling. She remembered her grip on his hand and felt his energy waning. A vision came to her of Julian in all his savage glory holding Brakken’s head under the quicksand…but Julian himself was sinking, every kick took him deeper.

  Brakken’s mouth broke the surface again for one last gasping breath, and in his eyes was his disbelief and anger that he was finished. He grasped Julian’s shoulder and they both went under.

  The silence was complete now and perfect in its stillness. Kara floated, suspended in perfection like an embryo in her mother’s womb. She clenched her hand, but something was missing.

  Julian was missing.

  I’m here for a reason. And was the reason to simply exist? No. Not today. Today she was here for…Julian?

  Some part of her consciousness snapped back to attention. Julian had gone under. Julian was gone.

  Kara kicked through the perfect warmth and found the surface of the sand. She reached her hand in and sharp teeth dragged along her fingers, nipping at her flesh. She almost pulled her hand back until she found the tips of strong, kind fingers. She reached deeper. Two hands, but she couldn’t decide which to take.

  She grasped the hands and brought them together, merging them into one, and a feeling of rightness surged into her being. She pulled and Julian emerged from the sand, coughing up bits of his spirit until he settled into himself.

  Kara felt a deep sadness at saying goodbye to this place, but it wasn’t her time to stay. Now was the time to bring Julian home.

  Gavin had lost all hope. It had been hours since Kara and Julian had flashed away with his father, and Gavin had scouts posted every place they might appear. Kara’s apartment. Mercury Island. Julian’s lair. Mazeki’s kingdom. The location where they’d found the Sanctiáre—though the mountain Kara had visited was no longer there. Hell, Gavin had even stationed a scout at the Hoolecha Inn.

  But there was no sign of them, and Gavin was ruined beyond deliverance.

  He walked to Julian’s old tree on the island…the place he’d once buried his oldest and dearest friend…the place he’d dug Julian up when he’d feared the regeneration had stalled. One thing he’d never done—though the curiosity had come to him one sleepless night—was open the casket once again after Julian had risen.

  He’d always wondered if the man who’d risen was a new creature, only Julian in one element of his spirit, or if the black-wing had resurrected Julian’s corpse. He’d never checked after the first time, because he told himself it was too invasive, that it wasn’t his right to know. But in truth, it
had been too terrible to witness his dearest friend’s decomposing body.

  How ironic that he’d thought having Julian’s body in a box was the worst thing. It couldn’t compare to the fear and desolation that both Kara and Julian might truly be gone, their bodies and spirits consumed.

  He would never see them again. Never know what happened in their last moments. Never be able to tell his friend, even the pompous black-wing ass, how much he dearly loved him. He would never be able to spend millennia proving to Kara that she was the only woman he would want for all time.

  Gavin leaned against the trunk of the poplar, thankful the tree could support his weight when he could not. He closed his eyes, unable to even cry, when he felt a curious shimmer in the air around him. He opened his eyes again and realized he was seeing a vision. Kara and Julian, thin like mist, but naked, forehead to forehead in the grass, their knees tucked up to their chests and their fingers intertwined.

  The vision was a gift. He knew it meant they were happy wherever they were.

  But then Kara moaned, and Gavin blinked in amazement. Was their outline getting darker against the green of the grass? He didn’t dare hope, just held his breath and said be still to his heart as he waited.

  “Oh, crap,” Kara groaned. “Julian, are you okay?”

  Gavin crept forward, not wanting them to vanish like the dream he feared they were.

  Kara sat up, her long brown hair wet and stuck to her head, and her beautiful body on display. She glanced up at Gavin and frowned. “Why are you staring at me like that?”

  He went down on one knee. “Are you real?”

  Kara dropped her chin and stared at him through lowered brows. “Yeah. Are you?”

  He couldn’t help himself. He scooted to her on his knees and took her mouth with his until she all but melted in his arms. When he was finished, her full nipples pressed against his bare chest and he suddenly regretted that she’d lost her crazy bloodlust when her wings had finished forming. He wouldn’t have minded being bit and pushed up against the tree in that moment.