by Nia Night
Zia stood, clearly reluctant, but didn’t argue. The others remained at the table as she walked me across the courtyard. At the end of it there was an archway and a gate. Through the stone arch, I could see the shimmer of the Veil over the human world, which no doubt made this location appear quite ordinary to mortal eyes. And beyond that, a quiet city street. Not Carson City, but some other town that could be absolutely anywhere in the continental US.
I stood at the threshold, just inside the stone archway, the ancient trees and books at my back, the open world to my front.
“No one will stop you, Iliana,” Zia said when I only continued to stand there.
“Very few could,” I told her, meeting her eyes before turning toward the exit.
Then I strode out, passing through the shimmering wall of the archway and onto the quiet street.
Once there, I saw that I was in a small town, rather than a city. The air smelled faintly of salt, but which sea was nearest, I hadn’t a clue. It didn’t matter. I picked a direction and started walking. Then I kept on walking until the façade of the old church that housed a famous supernatural library was no longer looming at my back.
If I was smart, I would just keep on walking, wash my hands of this matter right here and now. I opened my right hand and stared at the silver marking there. Squeezing it into a fist, I let it drop to my side, taking note instead of the quaint shops on either side of me. A few people wandered up the sidewalks, their gaits slow and easy, the day pleasantly warm thanks to the approaching summer.
Truth be told, I didn’t know what to make of any of this. Hadn’t a clue as to what my next move should be. I felt as though I was being shoved toward a cliff, not knowing how far the drop was, or what waited at the bottom.
A few weeks ago, I’d been a lone assassin. Maybe I drank and slept around too much, but I handled my business and kept to myself. Now, I was being asked to safeguard a child that held the power to upset the order of the world. If the Fates really had slated me for all of this, the bitches had some wicked senses of humor.
I watched a couple seagulls circle overhead and take off, envying them their freedom. If I walked away from this responsibility that had been thrust toward me, what would I even do? Where would I go? The Sisterhood had provided answers to these questions. As fucked up as it may have been, they’d given me a purpose, and the idea that I could never go back, that I was no longer a Sister, left me feeling…hollow. Not sad, exactly, but empty.
I had no business taking care of a child. I was the absolute worst role model in existence. I wandered a little further, the temptation to just keep going strong, but decided that the right thing to do was to tell the child and the others that I just couldn’t do what they were asking of me. They might be pissed, but I didn’t even know these people, and the last time I’d trusted someone I didn’t know had seriously bitten me in the ass. Fuck all that mess. Fool me once. There would be no fooling me twice.
With this decided, I looped around and began making my way back toward the library. Just as I was doing so, a dark shape flitted across the sky, a shadow moving within the clouds. It passed over where I stood, and as it did so, magic trailed in its wake. I followed the shape, knowing that the humans sharing the street with me could not see it. Whatever had just passed overhead was not human.
A curse fell from my lips as I noted the direction in which it was heading.
The library.
6
Despite my decision to flee, I found my feet moving into a run, my arms pumping as I made to close the distance between the library and me. I was still forty yards away when a blast of dark magic rippled out from that direction, potent enough to nearly make me stumble.
I ran then in a full out sprint, heart thudding heavily in my chest.
With every step I drew closer, the sounds of chaos grew louder, imperceptible to human ears, but like nails on a chalkboard to mine. Out of instinct, my hand went to my waist, where my Calidi chain normally would be, but of course, it was not there. In fact, I realized with a start. I didn’t have any weapons with me save for the knife in my boot and a couple throwing stars in my jacket.
One of the first lessons I’d learned at the Academy: Stay armed to the teeth. At all times.
No matter. I could kill just as efficiently with my bare hands.
I reached the stone archway at last and burst through the shimmering wall that kept mortal eyes from prying, the breath knocked out of me as I took in the scene inside.
It was as though the ten hells themselves had descended.
There was so much to take in. I hardly knew where to look first. Three massive Hellhounds had Zia and four of the other older female Literati cornered. The beasts were the size of small ponies, their dark fur thick over the bulging muscles of their bodies. Short, pointed ears and enormous canines dripped ropes of drool as they snarled and snapped at the females.
The females, to their credit, were not cowering.
They were wielding whatever supernatural powers they had in defense.
The scent of magic and brimstone filled the air.
On the floor, three Literati who I’d shared a meal with less than an hour ago, but whose names I didn’t know, lie dead. A pool of blood leaked out from beneath one. The necks of the other two were twisted to unnatural angles. Three sets of eyes stared unseeing toward the heavens.
While Zia and the others were occupied with the Hellhounds, Ibrahim and Vida faced off with three Demon males. High Demon males with enough power to command three Hellhounds.
For a few stolen moments, all I could do was stare.
Spiraled horns sprouted from heads of long, pitch-black hair. Their faces were beautiful, twisted nightmares, with eyes that beamed scarlet brimmed in midnight. Fangs jutted out over their lips to rest on their strong jaws. Massive, membranous wings sprouted from their backs, the tips of their fingers sharp talons.
Ibrahim stood across from them, dark magic rallying around him, Vida tucked protectively behind his back. Though Ibrahim was not a small male, he looked so with the other High Demon males standing across from him. Though that magnificent power of his permeated the room, taking down three High Demons would be no easy feat.
One of the Demons tilted his head, long onyx hair rippling over his shoulders, and extended a clawed hand toward the child. Vida gripped Ibrahim’s shirt tighter, but otherwise stood tall.
“Come, darling,” the Demon crooned. “Or we’ll kill everyone in this room.”
I was already moving.
The throwing stars were in my hands. I didn’t remember grabbing them. I had three. The same number of Hellhounds. They cut through the air like tiny silver missiles. Each embedded itself into the heads of the Hounds. They yelped as the stars dug deep into their leathery flesh, and Zia and the others seized the opportunity. The stars would not kill them, but they would slow them down.
This drew the attention of the High Demon males at last.
Awesome.
Ibrahim engaged two of them while the third charged toward me.
Again, my body reacted. Long ago learned instincts took hold, muscle memory holding true. I’d been taught how to kill every manner of creature while at the Academy, and male Demons were not the least of them.
In fact, a male Demon with a dark power not unlike Ibrahim’s had been my first kill. Also my favorite.
I used the same maneuvers now as I had then, moving like the night and the shadows, the ghost on the wind. Darting around the spiral of Demon magic that shot for me, I gripped one of the male’s massive, curling horns and swung around it, planting the soles of my boots at the base of his back.
With a snap of my wrists, I bent the Demon’s thick neck to the side as he roared in anger and clawed at me with sharp talons, the razor tips digging into me enough to draw blood.
I felt no pain, was too focused on the dagger that I’d slipped from my boot. Could hear the thudding of my target, the black vessel that had to be fully impaled in order to take down the
male.
I carved the heart from his chest, my movements deft and precise. Black blood dripped over my fingers, a reflection of the soul it sustained. The world around me dropped away, became nothing but background noise, until even that disappeared, and it was only me. Only me and the Demon heart I held in my hand.
I stared down at it a stolen moment.
Then plunged the dagger through the center. Demon power exploded outward. I was thrown from the Demon’s back as his body burst into flames.
Ibrahim’s dark magic had torn through the second Demon, and together, we took down the third, his magic holding the other Demon male in place while I plunged my blade through his chest. I would not have admitted it, but I was impressed. It would take massive magic to rip through a chest and crush a heart the way Ibrahim had.
The snarls of the Hounds turned into agonized howls. I turned to face the beasts, the black blood of their masters still dripping from the tips of my fingers. Then their bodies burst into flames as well, leaving nothing but swirling ash in their wakes.
Silence held for a tick. My nose wrinkled as I shook some of the black gore from my fingers, and finally, met the eyes of the others.
Shock and sadness twisted the faces of the ancient librarians as three of their sisters lie dead upon the floor. Vida stared with the stoicism of someone thrice her age. Ibrahim looked at me as if I was the one who’d killed the old librarians, and not the High Demons that had been attacking them.
Zia met my gaze square. “The longer you run from your destiny,” she said, “the more people are going to get hurt. Make a damn choice, Iliana. Then make peace with it.”
The truth was, I didn’t want to be responsible for a Gods damned child.
Call me a dick, but that shit did not sound like fun to me. I’d been sterilized upon graduating from the Academy, just like the rest of my Sisters, had known from a very early age that children were not a part of my future. Sisters didn’t buy into the patriarchy-perpetuated bullshit that females needed to have children to have purpose and value. If I’d ever had a “motherly instinct” that shit had been straight up burned out of me as I’d been molded into a Sister.
Fate of the world or no, ya girl was not down with this shit.
But what else was I supposed to do? What was I supposed to say to this room full of people, staring at me like I was a dickwad for not being like, “Sure! I’d love to protect a child I’ve only met once and who has a host of powerful supernaturals after her! Who the fuck wouldn’t want to do that!”
What it came down to, as I was pressured into making a choice right there, was the sad fact that if I refused, I didn’t have a clue as to what else I would do, where I would go. I glanced down at my wrist, where the tattoo of the Sister’s Mark had been cut free of my skin, an ugly, raised scar all that was left in its place.
Who was I if I was not a Sister?
This question knocked me off my mental feet, but years of training gave no outward indication of the personal crisis taking place within me as I battled with giving an answer.
“What do I have to do?” I said at last.
Zia seemed to slump a bit in relief, as if she’d been holding her breath for my decision this entire time. The other females pointedly ignored me as they tended to the bodies of the three fallen librarians. I noticed that one of the deceased was the female with the bright green, mischievous eyes who’d brought me the moonshine earlier. My stomach twisted, but you wouldn’t have known it.
What was wrong with me? Death was the only intimate companion of a Sister. I should have felt nothing. I shouldn’t have cared about any of this in the least.
“There is a way to mute the beacon,” Zia said. “Someone who can cast a shielding spell powerful enough to lower the signal Vida puts out, making her less of an easy target.”
I scoffed. “Why the hell wasn’t this done before?” I asked.
Zia pursed her lips at my tone, but spoke as evenly as she had since I’d met her. “It was done before, and the ingredients for the spell are not easy to locate. Every ten years the spell has to be recast. It was done when Vida was an infant. She turns ten in three days. The spell grows weaker by the hour. It needs to be replenished.”
My gaze went to the child, as if drawn there by some invisible pull. This was a mistake, but one I seemed helpless to keep making. I clenched my right hand into a fist, nails digging into my palm, where that silver keyhole marking now resided. I wanted to walk away from all this.
Instead, I said, “Where?”
“She needs to be taken to the City of Shadows, to find the Shadowborn and convince her to cast the spell to mute the beacon,” Zia said.
The City of Shadows. A place for thieves and cons, crooked businessmen and corrupt politicians. I snorted. “That all?” I asked, unable to keep the sarcasm from my tone. “Why didn’t you just say?”
Ibrahim opened his mouth to say something but I cut him a glance. “I’m gonna take her,” I snapped. “I’d just like to know more about what the ten hells I’m walking into.”
“Perfect,” Zia said, clasping her hands together in front of her. “You should get going as soon as possible. Ibrahim will accompany you.”
My brows shot up. “Um, no thanks. We’re good.” I looked at the child. “Grab whatever you gotta grab. We’ll head out immediately.”
The male Demon with the dark magic stalked over to us now, eyes narrowed on me. “I’m coming with you,” he said.
I held his gaze. “The only thing you’re going to do is back the fuck up off me before I get really offended.”
A heavy sigh from Vida stepped between us. “This is going to be great,” the child muttered.
“I’m her guardian, right?” I said. “I don’t need this brooding buttwipe to tag along.”
Zia’s sharp canines flashed as she approached me, not stopping until we stood nearly nose-to-nose, shooing the Demon male out of the way in the process.
“Life will be a lot easier for you if you stop pretending you have any kind of control over what’s happening,” the old Fae told me. “You can only control your reactions to it. Take the child to the City of Shadows, find the Shadowborn… Try not to let the next phase of your life be as disappointing as the first.”
These words were spoken so plainly that I could do nothing but stare. Even Vida and the Demon male glanced away, as if they were embarrassed to have heard the words. Before I could think of anything to say to this, any response at all, the earth shook beneath my feet, jarring me enough that I nearly lost balance.
In the space between three blinks, the library and courtyard around me melted out of existence. The ancient trees with the heart-shaped leaves retreated into the earth, taking the numerous tomes along with them. The nook-like rooms ringing the edges of the space faded into nothing. The grass beneath my boots became linoleum, and the human side of the Veil was revealed in its place.
The Literati, with their long gray gowns and judgmental countenance disappeared along with it, dissipating as if a dream.
I was left staring at the spot where the old Fae had been, where she’d stood as she’d spoken those harsh words to me.
A half heartbeat later, the child and the Demon were the only things from the Library left standing beside me.
7
So the Libraries of the Literati moved location. That was why they were so hard to find.
Now, I was standing in the center of an abandoned church. The ceiling was high and the pews missing. Some of the windows were stained glass, others were boarded up where stained glass used to be. A simple arched doorway stood where that exit arch had been, the human world waiting beyond.
I turned to the Demon male, my anger at the old Fae’s harsh words turning on him. “Why are you here? What is your stake in this? Who the ten hells are you?”
“My name is Ibrahim,” said the Demon, with as much distaste as I was coming to expect from him. “I’m going to help you obtain the spell to mute Vida’s beacon.” His jaw was set
as he said this, as if begging me to challenge. “We need to go. Until we secure the spell, we have to be constantly moving.”
I snorted. “Why should I trust you?”
“You don’t have a choice,” the Demon snapped back.
I was about to tell him where to shove it when the child spoke. “I trust him, Iliana,” she said.
Devas Demon Goddess on a cracker, I thought to myself. How the fuck had I ended up here?
“You better not be a dick the whole time,” I told the Demon. “How do we get to the City of Shadows?”
“We’ll take the Dark Alleys,” he answered, ignoring the jab because he apparently wasn’t a total idiot.
“The Dark Alleys?” I glanced at the child and back at the Demon. “You can’t be serious.”
The male slipped his hands into the pockets of his black slacks, which I noticed now were designer, along with his black, button up shirt, his black shoes and belt. Whoever this fucker was, he had money. His eyes and hair were as dark as his clothing, as dark as his magic, as smooth as his voice when he spoke.
“Do you have a better suggestion for how to get all the way to the City of Shadows while avoiding attacks from every creature in the realm?” he asked in the low tone he seemed to adopt when he was feigning obnoxious patience.
At some point, I was going to end up swinging on this buttwipe.
“If I knew where we are,” I said through gritted teeth, “I might.”
“We’re on the western seaboard. Not far from San Diego.”
The City of Shadows was the supernatural side of the Veil that the humans called New York City. So the expanse of the country lay between our destination and us. Unless we wanted to leave a trail of supernatural bodies across America, the Demon was probably right.
The Dark Alleys may be where the worst of the supernatural races dwelled, the dirtiest of the dirty, but it also was a black market of sorts. This meant all kinds of special, dangerous items passed through its borders, and provided a sort of hum of supernatural power that might go a long way in muting Vida’s beacon. Really, though I wouldn’t have admitted it to save my dark soul, it was a good idea.
