The Black Knights
MATILDA REYES
The Black Knights Copyright © 2018 by Matilda Reyes Name. All Rights Reserved.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
Cover designed by Amygdala Designs © 2018
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Matilda Reyes
Visit my website at www.MatildaReyes.com
Printed in the United States of America
First Printing: March 2018
ISBN-13 ooo-0-0000000-1-2
DEDICATION
To Omar. You know why.
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book would not have been possible without my amazing team. Omar, for putting up with the crazy hours, manic spurts of writing, irritability stemming from plot issues, and much more. Jennifer S., my intrepid beta reader, for slogging through all those words. Kevin, for his keen eyes and for always knowing what I’m trying to say, even if I don’t. My best friend, Jessica, who calms me down with her particular brand of humor. My family, who still stares at me like I have three heads when I talk about the writing process, for your unwavering support. My writing pals who continuously inspire me with your drive and passion. And to my friends for your belief in me. I could not do what I do or be who I am without you.
CHAPTER ONE
IT WASN’T MY FAULT he caught on fire. How was I supposed to know he was flammable? Er, more flammable than the average human, I mean.
My team of assassins had been training to fight with a combination of physical skills and their supernatural abilities when someone told me that my favorite assassin was fireproof. Never one to miss an opportunity, I’d called him over and asked him to show me the talent he’d kept hidden for years.
“Dammit, Voss,” I cried, smacking the flames as they danced along the guy’s leg. “Stop, drop and roll!”
The older man glared at me and snatched the fire-retardant blanket I tossed to him. He shooed me away and put the flames out with a grimace. His smooth, honey-colored skin was red and blistering, welts rising to the surface as we watched. “I don’t know what kind of fire you generate, but that’s not the average flame,” he grumbled. “Cripes, Jasper. I’ll take a good old forest fire over your sparks any day.”
I scowled and plopped down onto the mats that comprised our gym floor, not sure if I was more annoyed or embarrassed. I hadn’t meant to hurt him, just light him up with the energy my body converted into fireballs. In hindsight, we should have known my power, the same sparks I’d used to boil men’s blood in their bodies, wouldn’t react the same way as the lighter he’d used to prove his point. Live and learn, I guessed.
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
Voss picked at the frayed, crispy edges of his pants. The collection of holes the size of fingertips was complemented by the two fist-sized tears near his crotch. “Don’t apologize. We tested a theory and found out I’m capable of being set on fire by supernatural means.”
“Still, I can’t kill my second in command,” I argued.
Voss and I caught each other’s eyes and grinned. For as much as we bickered, I trusted Benjamin Voss more than just about anyone. He was my right hand, the level-headed partner in my management of the Order of Vespers. We were an ancient brotherhood dedicated to maintaining the cosmic Balance by eliminating threats to humanity. Government special forces had nothing on us, and not just because I could shoot energy beams out of my body and crispy critter people.
“You threaten to kill me at least once a week. You yelled that you would murder me two days ago.”
I swept my long, wavy brown hair into a ponytail and smoothed down the front of my hot pink tank top with as much dignity as I could muster. Charred flecks of Voss’ pants dusted the length of my toned legs. “Yeah, well, that’s different. You backed out of our lunch plans at the last minute. There was no way I could eat that much without you.”
Voss snorted and took another look at his leg. “You need to slow down before you kill someone. Not even he worked this hard.”
He was my predecessor, my mentor, and my onetime crush. He had abandoned us three months ago to travel the world and do something mysterious and hadn’t bothered to call in weeks. “He’s coming back,” I insisted, “and we all need to be in better condition than when he left. I may be in charge, but I’m only keeping his seat warm.”
Voss arched a brow and held my gaze for a long few moments. “Boss, I don’t know how to say this, but Jordan isn’t coming back. It’s almost September, and he said if he wasn’t back by now, he wasn’t coming back. You need to accept that and come to terms with how this impacts all of us.”
The Order’s leadership had given up on Jordan, too. I refused to accept the possibility. He belonged with us, here at the Order. He’d never abandon me. Us.
“For the last time, I’m not having a strategic meeting on how to move forward.” I faltered. “Not just yet. Let’s give him until Christmas.”
“He said September,” Voss repeated.
“You’re sounding like Nicholas,” I said of my all-too-happy-to-see-Jordan-gone boyfriend. “He thinks the Order is a better, calmer place without him.”
Voss wrinkled his nose. “Calmer, yes. Better? Debatable. Anyway, we should either continue this conversation in the office or get back to work.”
“I want to fry something. Can’t you toss balls at me so I can work on my aim?”
He grinned at me, shook off the charred remains of the holes in his pants, and jogged over to the rack of dodgeballs I’d requested for this exact purpose. Like a pro, he hurled them at me, one after the other, laughing with childlike delight as I shot balls of energy, making each one explode in a poof of rubber, foam, and cloth.
✽ ✽ ✽
I needed a shower after that workout. We’d destroyed all the dodgeballs and had attacked a bucket of tennis balls for fun. In the process, we’d showered the gym and everyone in our general vicinity with rubber and dust. If I weren’t the boss, I would have been in for a world of trouble, not to mention an afternoon of sweeping and cleaning.
Back in my office, I tackled the most pressing task - calling my boyfriend, Nicholas. He’d left three messages in two hours, each more urgent than the last. I adored the man, but his paranoia was a killer. Sighing, I picked up the phone and dialed.
“Hey,
you,” I said to him in my sweetest voice. “Is everything okay?”
Nicholas breathed a sigh of relief. “Thanks for calling. I had the worst dream that something happened to you. When you didn’t answer your phone, I panicked.”
Rolling my eyes, I twiddled a pencil in between my manicured fingers, tapping on the surface of my desk. “This is the third time this week. I’m not going to die, at least not soon.”
“You don’t know,” he insisted. “I will forever be grateful for what Jordan did to bring you back to life. If he hadn’t tied his soul and life force to yours, we would have never met. But he’s a maniac and has likely almost gotten killed three times today.”
“Are you that afraid?”
“Yes.” Nicholas let out a deep sigh. “Between my nightmares and the fact that he’s not coming back, I’m convinced that something will happen to you.”
“Jordan’s too careful to die. Besides, he should return any day now.”
I could hear the scowl in his voice. “Why? Because he had such a great existence here? Maybe he’s going incognito and starting a new life somewhere. Who knows? He might have opened an antique weapons shop in Prague.”
I let out a startled laugh. “And I’m sure he reads the paper in the shadow of a pretty Gothic church.”
“You know your geography,” he said, amused. “I’m impressed.”
“I’ll have you know I was an honors student all three years of high school. Besides, it’s on my list of places to visit. I have dreams, you know.”
Nicholas chuckled. “Let’s hope that your other half is smart enough to let you live those dreams with me. Will I see you at the meeting this afternoon?”
“Is it the core group?”
“No, everyone. That includes Esai.”
I felt a surge of rage inside me and clenched my hand around the phone I was holding. I snarled at the name of the newest member of the Circle, the Order’s leadership body of which Mikael, Nicholas, and I were members. “Him too? You know, if Jordan were still here and he wanted to imprison Esai, no one would have said a word.”
“That’s not true. Other than piss you off daily, he hasn’t done anything to warrant incarceration.”
“He’s possessed!” I shouted, exploding out of my chair with a gust of wind that knocked all the papers from my desk. “I’ve seen that darkness leaking out of him.”
Nicholas made soothing noises over the phone. Mikael ran into the room, frightened by the ruckus coming from behind my closed door.
“Sweetheart,” Nicholas said, “he’s not possessed.”
“You’re wrong. He’s infected with some darkness.”
Mikael’s round face fell and looked at me with pity. I’d been crying demonic possession to anyone of importance who would listen, but my pleas had fallen on deaf ears. My life was a good one, even with the hunting and killing people. But Esai and his demon were my sore spot. “Jasper, he’s not possessed.”
“Nicholas, I’ll see you later,” I said and slammed the phone down, my mood ruined. Talking to these men was pointless. They refused to listen and I didn’t have the energy to argue about what was obvious to only me. “Don’t you start on me, too.”
Mikael sat down across from me and exhaled. “Last year, when we returned your intelligence and spirit to your body, I admit I saw many things I cannot explain. But I did not see a dark entity enter Esai, nor have I seen anything in my visions. Dakarai feels nothing. Cecilia has read nothing about such possessions. Please, for all that is holy, let it go,” he said, his Russian accent thickening with frustration.
“Get out,” I said, close to tears. These days, I was worse than a hormonal teenager, at least with Esai and the lack of faith the Circle had in me.
“No.”
“What?”
“I said no. Deal with it,” he replied, the steel in his words a stark contrast from the gentle voice that spoke them. “You need me to keep you level. I will not walk away when you are close to the edge.”
I wanted to cry. No, I wanted someone to believe me and stop looking at me as if I had lost my ever-loving mind. I knew what I’d seen and felt. There was a dark entity, a wrongness, that emanated from Esai. I was convinced that he needed to be wiped off the face of the Earth. This was Mikael speaking, my best friend in the world. He wasn’t malicious, and we both knew I’d never deny him anything within reason. Tethering me to sanity was a damn good one. “Fine. But you’re paying for lunch.”
A smile threatened to ruin his stern visage. “Fine, but I’m choosing. Fix your makeup, Milaya,” he said, using his pet name for me. He checked his watch and stood. “You have a full day of work and want no one, especially Esai, to know he’s gotten to you again.”
Sniffling, I nodded. “You’re right. But you can’t stop me from figuring out how to get rid of him.”
Mikael threw his hands up in the air. His long, glossy black waves of hair fell into his face, down past his heavy brows. He brushed the mop out of his eyes and sighed. “I give up. Between your paranoia about Esai and Nicholas’ obsession with your impending demise, you will be the death of me.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I don’t want to stress you out, but it feels like I have so much on my plate. I seared Voss this morning. He’s been a good sport about it, but it’s never a good thing for the team to see the boss kill someone.” Someone who wasn’t Esai, I didn’t say. I would have been okay with that. In fact, I would have had Mikael sell tickets.
The tight lines around his dark eyes softened. “You are having a bad day. Not only will I buy lunch, but I will make you dinner. We can commiserate over greasy food and bad movies.”
“You’re the best.”
“I know,” he responded. “You have a meeting in ten minutes. Try not to kill anyone in the meantime.”
CHAPTER TWO
FOR AN ANCIENT ORDER, one would have expected that the Circle met in a dungeon around a stone altar or something similar. True, we had one of those, but we only used it for special occasions. The conference room featured a round table with comfortable executive chairs. We had a projector that hung from the ceiling, a retractable screen, and all the modern amenities that any corporate CEO could have wanted.
It should have been a pleasant time when the seven of us caught up and shared details of our lives, but most days it felt more like a cage match of which those wrestlers were so fond. Sometimes it felt like we hated each other. The animosity was there.
We trickled into the room and claimed our usual seats around the large table with Dakarai at what we considered being the head. Mikael and Nicholas flanked my sides with the others facing us.
“Hey,” Nicholas whispered in my ear. “You, me, and a nature hike this weekend. I’ll even prepare a picnic with edible foods.”
I snickered. The last time I’d been in charge of food, I’d packed power bars and Gatorade, not at all what he’d had in mind. “Yes, please and thank you. Mikael and I are having our movie night. You’re welcome to join us.”
He shook his head, unwilling to intrude on my time with my best friend. “I’m hanging out with Xavier and Frank tonight. But thanks for the offer.” He eyed the door as Esai walked in. “Behave,” he warned.
“Fine, fine,” I grumbled. “I don’t have anything with me anyway.”
Nicholas glanced over at me with a smug expression on his face. “I took the salt and pocket mirror out of your bag this morning. Do I want to know what you were going to do with the egg?”
My lip twitched as I fought back a smile. “You do not. I promised I’d stop.”
I’d said that lie so many times that even I believed it. So obsessed was I with exorcizing the dark spirit from Esai that I’d borrowed practices from all over the world. I’d traced symbols supposed to expel evil on his doorstep, broke into his apartment and smoke cleansed the place, put glasses of water under tables in rooms he frequented, and threw salt at him whenever he wasn’t looking. I’d even crawled under his bed and traced symbols supposed to exorcize
demons, at least according to the books I’d read. When that didn’t work, I’d put charms around myself and others. Mikael put up with the arrowheads I’d placed above his door, and Dakarai said nothing when I handed him a wreath of rosemary. Nicholas lost it when he found the herb-filled satchel and gemstones at the bottom of his work bag. He still hadn’t noticed the Nazar in his office. I didn’t relish the thought of that argument.
“I dare you to get through the meeting without throwing something.”
“Done. Shake on it.”
Mikael plopped down on my right and shook his head. “I don’t want to know.”
Clearing his throat, Dakarai called the meeting to order. “Set aside the reports for today. I want to talk about a larger threat.”
I pumped my fist. Someone was taking me seriously. About friggin time.
“I’ve had disturbing visions of late,” said Mikael. “There is a storm. A crack in the sky with darkness pouring out, tainting everything.”
Nicholas clapped his hand over my mouth to stop me from pressing the matter further and saying something I’d regret. The man was good. I would start in on the darkness within Esai and how we needed to exorcize him, but we both knew it would have been fruitless and fallen on deaf ears. I rolled my eyes and silently promised to behave.
“Go on,” I said as casually as I could manage as soon as Nicholas removed his hand.
“One stands alone against the storm. One tries to hold together the seams of air and cloud. One fights. One dies.”
Danny snorted. “The usual. Great. As if we don’t have enough to do.”
“Enough,” said Cecilia. “This sounds like the dreams that Jasper’s had about Jordan.” She tapped her chin. “Come to think of it, your vision sounds like the dreams Nicholas has told me about. Have you considered that it may influence what you’re seeing, Mikael?”
He shook his head. “Her dreams are just a small part of what I see. It is the battle of a generation.”
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