Most Wanted - A Fantasy Romance Novel (The Shadow Blade Series)

by E. L Friel

  Suddenly Jax was in front of her. A wall of solid muscle. She pulled up short and stared up at him. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked, feeling a trace of fear ripple through her. The sound of cackling laughter rose up behind him and the lights filtering through from the pier cast his face with hollow shadows.

  ‘I don’t think you get it,’ he hissed. ‘These aren’t normal Suckers. I didn’t bring you here to get you killed. We need to figure out a plan. We can’t go breezing on in there. I thought we could recce them, find out how many there are, and then come back tomorrow once we’ve made a plan.’

  Ariel pulled a face at him. Really? He thought she had time for that? She had moneylenders riding her ass. She needed to help Jax with this so then they could go and earn some actual money. She slid past him. ‘I got it,’ she told him. ‘If you want to wait this one out, fine by me.’

  Actually it wasn’t fine by her at all. She wanted to see how he fought because if it turned out that he couldn’t fight then what use was he going to be helping her bring in the bounties she needed?

  Jax caught up with her again and when she glanced at him out the corner of her eye she saw his jaw was set and his eyes were glinting with that same light she’d seen in the alleyway before the fight with the bikers. He was gearing up for a fight. In his hand she caught a glimmer of silver. Saw discs. Nice.

  A high-pitched scream jolted her to a sudden standstill. Shadows wavered and moved like dark flames in the gloom beneath the pier. The scream was suddenly cut off with what sounded like a blunt force blow. It was a girl. That was all Ariel could think. Anger shot hot as lava through her body. She gripped the hilt of her blade. Time for a little slaying she thought to herself with a grim smile.

  Beside her she could feel Jax breathing, hear his heart beating loudly. She grimaced. They’d sense him any second. Hell, she would be able to sense him from the next State. ‘I’m going to fade,’ she told him. ‘And get nearer. I’ll take them by surprise and drive them towards the gap in the pier.’

  Jax nodded silently. She made to move but he suddenly caught her hand and squeezed it. ‘Be careful,’ he said under his breath.

  For the first time Ariel didn’t snatch her arm instantly away but let her fingers linger in his, feeling the heat travel from his body into her own. Her gaze flickered to his lips and she had the sudden desire to kiss him. She dismissed the thought instantly. When her blood was up, it wasn’t just her fighting instinct that got aroused.

  Chapter 5

  Jax stepped silently past her and disappeared into the shadows. He crouched low and made his way closer to the shore, a feeling of growing disquiet nagging at him. He felt that tug he’d felt before in the bar, as though a thin filament was connecting him to Ariel and it was unspooling as he moved away from her, making him feel slightly panicked. He was worried for her.

  He shook his head ruefully, reminding himself that Ariel was a bounty hunter, that she was half Shadow, that she had been collecting bounties for years. She’d put those bikers down no problem the other night. She knew how to handle herself. But still, he couldn’t help but feel nervous at the thought of putting her in danger. Once again he doubted his wisdom in bringing her into this.

  About ten meters from the shore Jax stopped and crouched down on his haunches to wait. He drew his blade and held it low so it wouldn’t catch the moonlight and give him away. He scanned the cavernous space beneath the pier, trying to estimate how many there were. He reckoned close to thirty. Cy had either got his intel wrong or more had been sired in the last twenty-four hours.

  Jax edged even closer, ducking behind one of the pier supports, wishing he could see Ariel. Light filtered through the slats of the pier and he was just able to make out the faces of the Suckers. They were high, that much was obvious, though whether it was just blood lust sending them into a frenzy or whether it was fuelled by something else, Jax wasn’t sure. Their fangs were glinting, and their clothes were sprayed with red. They looked as though they’d been hosed down with crimson paint. They were gathered in a rough circle, pushing and shoving and shrieking, but thankfully their focus was on whatever was in the center of the circle. He had a fairly good idea of what that might be.

  Somewhat creepily the scene reminded Jax of kids gathering to watch a playground fight. Just then the circle broke apart and Jax caught a brief glimpse of a young girl, no older than fifteen, crouched down in the center. She was on her knees, bent over sobbing. Her face, when she looked up briefly, was a fright mask of terror. She held up bloodstained hands and screamed and Jax saw a Sucker leap into the circle, grab her by the throat and haul her to her feet. The circle pressed forwards closing the gap, blocking Jax’s view.

  There was a stomach-wrenching scream that sent Jax flying to his feet, his saw blades in one hand, his blade in the other. His whole instinct was urging him forwards, into the circle to rescue the girl, but stone cold reason stopped him. He needed to wait and let Ariel make a first pass. He’d stayed alive this long by listening to his reason, not by rushing in like a fool.

  Once again the circle parted for a second, giving Jax a broken glimpse of the girl, now lying on the ground. Blood flowed in rivers from a wound to her shoulder and what Jax thought had been the pattern of her dress, he now saw was in fact blood, streaks of it painting her bare arms and her legs, staining what was left of her clothing. They were circling her like hyenas, taking it in turns to dart forwards and bite her. Jax’s stomach turned. What were they doing? It was like they were just playing with her. Suckers liked to kill yes, but they weren’t usually sadistic about it.

  Jax had seen Suckers feasting before. He had disposed of bodies that had been feasted on – not that there was ever much left to dispose of. When Suckers fed they were like jackals, tearing people limb from limb, ripping out intestines and eating organs while they still pulsed. They didn’t just drink blood, they ate the entire body, gnawing the bones to dust. But this girl, they were toying with her, torturing her for what looked like fun. Were they trying to infect her? It was possible, given the bite marks. But the amount of damage they were doing make it unlikely. When they infected someone they just needed to bite them once.

  The saw blades Jax was carrying cut into his palms. He eased his grip. The last thing he needed was for them to smell fresh blood. He was itching to start throwing them already. Where the hell was Ariel? Why was she taking so long? He couldn’t stand there a moment longer, watching them taunt the poor girl, listening to her screams. She was as good as dead already anyway. She’d been bitten. Within twenty hours she’d succumb to the virus. The kindest thing he could do was put her out of her misery. He brought his arm back, sliding a circular saw blade between his thumb and middle finger and took aim.

  Ariel stared at the pile of dead bodies off to one side feeling bile rise up her throat. From a distance it had looked like a pile of driftwood but as she drew nearer and had caught a waft of decaying flesh, she had realized it wasn’t a pile of litter at all, but rather a mound of discarded limbs and blood-spattered body parts. The screams of the girl cut through her horror-struck trance. Ariel dragged her eyes away from the fly-ridden pile of human debris and turned back to the circling bloodsuckers. The girl they were toying with had struggled to her feet, and was now spinning around, one arm hanging limply at her side, trying uselessly to defend herself with a piece of wood.

  A Sucker close to Ariel threw his head back and brayed loudly and Ariel caught the iron tang of fresh blood on the air mixed with the toxic scent of panic. The girl’s heartbeat was a loud thrum, her pulse ragged. It was driving the Suckers wild. An Emo-looking girl with bright red hair that was flaming like a halo around her head moved in a blur and took a bite out of the girl’s shoulder. She fell to the ground with an agonized yelp and the Sucker turned to Ariel, blood smeared across her face, looking elated.

  Mother sucking bastards, Ariel thought as she merged with the shadows and slipped between the ranks of jostling Suckers. The first one, the braying one, went down
with a blade between his ribs. Ariel pulled it free and dragged it across the neck of the red-haired girl who let out a bleat of surprise before hitting the sand face first.

  By then the others had figured out something was happening, that something was in their midst, but they still couldn’t see her. Ariel slid beneath an outstretched arm, punching her blade through the heart of the next one and then the next. That was four down. In five more seconds she had taken out another three. Panic was sown. The Suckers started running up the beach in Jax’s direction, just as she’d planned.

  The beauty of killing Suckers was that it didn’t matter where you hit them, so long as you sliced through their flesh with silver. Silver killed the Sucker virus. Once the virus was destroyed the human host body died instantly. It was kind of fun to watch and made killing Suckers like shooting fish in a barrel.

  As Ariel swept up the stragglers, trying to shepherd them in Jax’s direction, something whistled by her ear. She spun around and saw a circular saw blade slam into the forehead of a Sucker who had been coming up right behind her. She twisted and ducked as he lurched her way, arms outstretched. How was it still moving? Ariel watched in shock as he yanked the blade out of his skull like he was pulling a splinter from his foot. How was that possible? The blades were silver. Silver should be enough to kill them. But the guy wasn’t dead. He was the opposite of dead. He was still coming at her, frenzied and snarling. Ariel slashed her blade down hard, severing his hands at the wrists.

  He paused to stare at the stumps and at his hands sticking out of the sand and let out a howl of outrage.

  Ariel stared down at her dripping blade, realizing she was visible. It would be at least ten minutes, maybe longer, before she would be able to fade again. That had taken it out of her. But she wasn’t about to wait this one out. There were a dozen Suckers zoning in on Jax. Ariel sprinted up the beach towards them, whirling her blade as she ran, slicing two across the back of the neck and sending the saw blade into the back of a third one’s thigh and hamstringing him. He collapsed face down in the sand and she leaped over him.

  By the time she reached Jax it seemed like there were even more of them. Where had they all appeared from? One thrust in front of her and Ariel saw it was the girl with red hair. Hadn’t she killed her already? She could see the cut her knife had made across her throat. She danced out the way of the Sucker’s snarling fangs and jabbed her in the stomach with the point of her blade. The Sucker looked down grimacing, but then smacked the blade away and kept coming at her. Ariel whipped around and saw Jax battling at least six Suckers, moving like a dervish, spinning this way and that, lashing out with his blade but barely managing to keep them at bay. And then she saw, with a sinking feeling, that they were starting to surround her too. What the hell?

  Ariel grunted and lunged and managed to cut two outstretched hands, slicing off fingers as they tried to grab for her. Jax and her were now back to back, thrusting and jabbing with their blades in ever more frantic swipes, trying to keep the screaming hoards of Suckers at bay.

  ‘What the hell are these things?’ she screamed over their shrieking cries. How were they not dead?

  ‘Thought you could tell me,’ Jax shouted back.

  ‘That would be a no. But it looks like you’re screwed,’ Ariel answered, slashing her blade across the arm of a Sucker girl who had crept close.

  ‘Me?’ Jax asked, pausing briefly to look Ariel’s way before darting low to jab the red haired girl in the side. She was starting to look like a pincushion. But she still showed no signs of falling down dead.

  Ariel tried to calculate how much longer she had before she’d be able to fade again. She could slip between them, slice off a few limbs and carve a path out of there. Over the snapping jaws and bobbing heads of their assailants she made out the blonde human girl they had been tormenting. She was on her feet, staggering up the beach. Ariel figured she could at least try to lead them in the opposite direction, try to give the girl a chance, though really what was the point. The best thing might be to just kill her before she succumbed to the virus.

  But what about Jax? She couldn’t just leave him at their mercy. They’d tear him to pieces. But if she stayed they were both going to die the voice in her head pointed out.

  At her side she heard Jax roar and watched him bring his blade down in a savage chop that took off the hand of a girl with dripping fangs who was wearing a Justin Bieber T-shirt and leopard print leggings. She deserved that for fashion crimes, Ariel thought to herself, before she was distracted by another girl, this one looking only about fifteen, who was crawling low across the sand, beneath the thrashing arms, aiming for a sneak attack. She kicked her in the head and then stabbed her blade through her spinal cord severing it. The girl lay there unmoving. They couldn’t be killed, but clearly they could be injured.

  ‘I have a plan,’ Ariel yelled to Jax.

  ‘What?’ Jax grunted in reply, throwing his last saw blade. It embedded itself with a thunk into the throat of the red-haired girl but didn’t do much to stop her. She still kept coming at them, her nails raking the air just inches in front of his face.

  ‘Get ready to run!’ Ariel hissed, and before Jax could say a word she faded. It took almost all her energy and she knew she couldn’t hold it for long. Fading was like flexing a deeply buried muscle. It required lots of focus and effort to hold it, and the muscle quickly tired.

  There was a gasp from the Suckers around them as Ariel vanished into thin air. She heard Jax swear under his breath as they all surged towards him taking advantage of the gap. Gathering herself Ariel started to swing brutally, cutting a swathe straight through them, opening up a path.

  She hoped Jax was fast enough to make it through behind her. Suckers fell back screeching as she aimed for hamstrings and eyes, swiping at anything in her way. Her blade was sharp and cut through their flesh like she was slicing through warm butter.

  Behind her she felt Jax hot on her heels. ‘Run!’ she yelled.

  Chapter 6

  ‘Get on!’

  Jax swung his leg over his motorbike. He glanced over Ariel’s shoulder and saw the swarm of Suckers, or whatever the hell they were, stampeding towards them along the boardwalk. A couple of the homeless guys sleeping rough on the grass jerked awake and he saw one get trampled.

  ‘Hurry!’ he urged.

  Ariel threw her leg over the back of Jax’s bike. As soon as she did he revved the engine and tore off down the street feeling Ariel’s arms wrapping around his waist, her body clinging to his in order to stay on the bike. He revved the engine harder and felt the muscles of her thighs grip his, her cheek pressing between his shoulder blades.

  It was only when he hit the freeway that he realized he was heading in the direction of his place and that he hadn’t even stopped to check if Ariel was OK with that. But she was pressed against his back and his blood was still roaring in his ears, his heart pounding from the fight, and maybe too, from the feel of her body fitting against his own so perfectly. He was aware of her heart beating as loud and fast as his own, her body huddled against his, sheltering from the biting wind, which he himself strangely wasn’t feeling at all. The fizzing electric current between the two of them, which seemed to have amplified since the fight, was keeping him warm.

  Ariel didn’t say a word as he kept driving. She wasn’t asking him where they were going or telling him to pull over, and he took that for silent acquiescence. Acquiescence to what he wasn’t totally sure, but he had a few ideas. For a brief moment he pondered the wisdom of bringing a bounty hunter back to his place. The Blades were notoriously secretive. They had to be. It was what kept them alive. That Ariel knew what he was was danger enough, that he was about to show her where he lived was possibly the stupidest thing he’d ever done. She was a bounty hunter. He didn’t know whether or not they’d ever put a bounty on a Blade but it wasn’t impossible. But still, he tossed the thought aside and kept on driving. Another thought drifted into his mind; Ariel was half demon. What was he
getting into? But she felt fully human and she looked fully human, the voice in his head argued, the same voice that was imagining what she looked like under those clothes.

  The thought stirred him, the thought of what lay ahead, the possibility of Ariel in his bed, naked beneath him, stirred him even more, and he had to rein in his speed. Watching her fight had unleashed something in him, something he would freely admit was both primal and base. During the fight he’d moved from wanting to protect her to wanting only to observe her. He’d wanted to stand aside so he could marvel at her speed and grace and strength. She seemed unvanquishable, all powerful, and the thought of taming her, of seeing that speed and grace and strength translate into the bedroom excited him, perhaps more than it should.

  What would Neve say if she knew? He felt guilty thinking about her and tried to push the thought away. She would never know. And Ariel… something about her, about her defiance as much as her pride and her beauty, had sparked something in him. She was unlike any other woman he’d ever met. A voice in his head pointed out that that was because she wasn’t human. Or not fully at least.

  Ariel didn’t say a word when Jax drove the zigzagging Mulholland Road. Her hands loosened their grip as he slowed the bike but her body leaned with his into the bends, and her palms, resting gently against his stomach, seemed to be searing their heat right through his T-shirt, branding his skin. Her heart rate hadn’t slowed either since their sprint up the beach, and when Jax cut the engine of the bike and turned towards Ariel, he felt it miss a few beats.

  He swung his leg over the bike and held a hand out to help her off the bike. She chose to ignore it, climbing off by herself, and twisting to look at the house. Jax saw the shock register on her face before she quickly blanked it off and painted on her usual indifferent expression. He smiled to himself. She liked to act inscrutable but she was easier to read than she thought. He wondered what it would take to see the real Ariel McQueen, and what it would take to be able to prize the mask off her.