Shadow Caster: The Nightwatch Academy book 1

by Cassidy, Debbie

  “Urgh.” Hyde covered his nose and mouth with his free hand.

  Yeah, it was an overpowering smell, and my gag reflex sprang into action. I adjusted to breathing through my mouth, which was just as gross because it meant I was tasting the air. I took a step, and the world swayed as dizziness assaulted me. Okay … this had to be the effect of carrying someone. Not so bad. I could deal with this. Just one moment.

  “Justice, you okay?” Hyde asked.

  I smiled. “Fine. Just a little dizzy.”

  He frowned. “The phasing … fuck, it’s taking a toll, isn’t it?”

  But the dizziness had dissipated. “I’m fine. Harmon should be close by. We need to get to him.”

  Shouts and bellows drifted down the tunnel toward us.

  To demonstrate how fine I was, I broke into a run, taking Hyde with me. It was only when we skidded around the corner and came face to face with a bunch of cadets fending off three hounds that I realized we were still holding hands. I released him abruptly.

  He drew a dagger from his belt and handed it to me. “I know we haven’t trained much with daggers but—”

  “I can handle it.”

  We jumped into the fray.

  Harmon and Thomas were back to back, hunting daggers and swords flashing as they fended off the beasts. One cadet was on the ground, slumped against the wall, clutching his abdomen, while another applied pressure to a bubbling wound. Mal … Mal was down, face pale, eyes too dark in his head. His body shook as it went into shock.

  Helping him would have to wait till we’d dealt with the hounds. Not real hounds but just as dangerous. Their eyes were bright red, and feral rage motivated their every move. Harmon caught sight of me, and almost got snared by the snap of powerful jaws.

  “Justice!” he cried out. “Get back.”

  Yeah, not happening. I stabbed the hound in the neck, slicing into its vertebrae. It went down, oozing yellow gunk.

  “What the hell?” Thomas cried out.

  I shook off the gunk on my hand. “They’re not hounds, they’re morphs. I’ll explain later. We need to get out of here.”

  Behind us, Hyde had already dispatched the other two hounds.

  He stood, magnificent, chest heaving as he scanned the room. “We’re missing three cadets?”

  “They ran that way when the hounds attacked.” Thomas’s lips curled in disgust. “Cowards.”

  “He’s lost too much blood,” the cadet administering to Mal said.

  It was Gimble, the sandy-haired dude with the large Adam’s apple.

  Mal looked up at us, his breath coming in shallow pants. “Don’t … don’t want to die.”

  Fuck.

  “He needs blood.” Harmon rolled up his sleeve, but Gimble beat him to it, shoving his arm into Mal’s mouth.

  “Fey blood is more potent,” he said by way of explanation. “I don’t know what … I didn’t think … I should have …”

  “Logic can fly out of your mind in the heat of combat,” Hyde said kindly.

  “See that, Mal?” Thomas sneered. “A bastardized fey is fucking saving your ass.”

  But Mal was too busy slurping, and Gimble’s eyes began to flutter closed. The fucker was draining him.

  “Enough!” I kicked Mal in the head, hard enough to dislodge his fangs from Gimble’s arm.

  The feyblood fell back with a moan.

  “Shit.” Harmon swept him up and over his shoulder.

  Mal shuddered as he healed, wounds knitting, and the scent of Gimble’s blood had saliva pooling in my mouth. I swallowed and stepped away from the semi-conscious feyblood.

  Mal used the wall to stand, his dark, angry eyes confused and clouded for once. He’d almost died, and that shit could change a person. Let’s hope it gave him a personality overhaul.

  “We need to move,” Hyde said. “Come on.” He led the way away from the dead hounds bleeding yellow gunk, and down the corridor the other cadets had taken. “They can’t have gone far. From what I recall, the hounds like to make their dens this way. Plenty of nooks to curl up in. Let’s hope they haven’t gone too deep.” A scream echoed off the walls. “Stay here,” Hyde ordered, and then he ran toward the screams.

  Like hell was I letting him get his arse killed. He was our only way out of here. “Stay here,” I said to Harmon, mimicking Hyde’s tone. “Trust me. We’re here to get you all out. This place is rigged and about to blow.”

  “What the—” Harmon made a grab for my arm, but I was already running after Hyde.

  The tunnels narrowed claustrophobically, interconnecting and shooting off from each other. It was a warren, a dark, dank warren, and if not for the grunts and growls, I would probably have gotten hopelessly lost.

  I skidded into a wide chamber to find a cadet cowering in the corner and two on the ground. From the looks of the pulpy mess of their torsos, they were dead.

  Hyde fought off two hounds larger than the ones we’d come across in the previous chamber. These were full grown ones. Morphs too if the yellow lacerations on their hides were anything to go by. This was why Redmond hadn’t wanted Hyde to kill the hounds that had escaped into the forest. The yellow gunk would have been a dead giveaway.

  “Get the cadet out of here,” Hyde ordered.

  “I’m not leaving you.” I ducked and dove, and then my back was to Hyde’s. “We get out together.”

  We defended and attacked, covering each other against the beasts, trying to get close enough to stab an artery—if morphs had arteries, that is. A claw scraped my arm, eliciting a yelp.

  “Justice?”

  “I’m fine.” I slammed the hilt of my blade against the beast’s head and kicked out to give myself some breathing room, but the reprieve was momentary, only enough to take a breath. Then the hound was lunging again, red eyes wide and insane.

  This was Redmond’s fault.

  These had been intelligent creatures once.

  He’d done this, and it was time to end it. It was time to put these creatures out of their misery.

  “I’m sorry. So sorry.”

  It took four punctures to find its main artery—right under its chin—and it went down instantly, convulsing as it bled out yellow goop.

  I turned to help Hyde only to see him kick out with his bionic leg and send the hound flying into the wall. There was a crack, and then the hound slid to the ground, unmoving.

  I sagged in relief. We’d done it. Oh, God.

  Hyde turned on me, eyes blazing. “I told you to stay put. What the fuck were you thinking?” He shouted the words, anger twisting his beautiful features and making the scars stand out bloodless against his flushed face.

  What was I thinking? Seriously? Rage rushed through me like an inferno, and then I was closing in on him, eyes burning with the heat of indignation.

  “I was thinking that I couldn’t bear for anything to happen to you! I was thinking if you die, we all die. I was thinking I needed to save your fucking ass.”

  We stood chest to chest, breath coming fast and shallow, eyes locked, and then with a ragged groan, he wrapped his hand around my ponytail and yanked me toward him. His mouth slanted down over mine, hungry, crushing, desperate, as if I was the oxygen to his flame. Citrus and salt on my tongue, an aching bloom in my heart. Heat behind my eyes because this was it. This was the connection I’d been yearning for. He sucked on my tongue, and then pulled back, grazing my bottom lip with his teeth as he broke the kiss.

  My insides were a molten lava of need, and my knees were rubber. His eyes churned with all the emotion he’d been holding back these past weeks, and in that moment, I was ready to drown in them. In that moment, I was just a woman falling in love.

  “Fuck,” he said softly, lids and lashes at half-mast. “Damn you, Justice.” He released me reluctantly and puffed out his cheeks. He closed his eyes and shook his head slightly, his tongue flicking out to sweep across his bottom lip as if savoring me there. My core tightened. “We can’t do this now,” he said gruffly. “Let’s
get the cadets out of here.”

  Not now but later. We’d do this later? The giddy part of me, the part that had been locked in chains forever, perked up, but I slapped her down. Not the time or place.

  We ran back through the tunnels, picked up the others, and followed Hyde through the network.

  He moved with ease, like he knew this place, like he belonged there. He stopped now and then to touch the wall or study a crack and then continued. My inner compass kept track of the direction. East, always east. I needed to know which way we were headed because I wouldn’t be leaving with them. It was obvious Hyde hadn’t thought that far yet, and I wasn’t about to remind him, not until the last minute because there was no doubt in my mind that he’d try to stop me.

  A soft rumble drifted down the corridor toward us and Hyde froze and raised a fist, signaling for us to stop.

  He looked back at us. “Wait,” he said softly, and then he crouched and continued forward.

  The darkness swallowed him. Long seconds passed and then he reappeared. Was it my imagination or had his face drained of color?

  He looked over his shoulder. “There’s a nest up ahead. Sleeping hounds. But there’s enough space to get past if we go single file.”

  Harmon had Gimble around the waist and was practically holding him up. The feyblood was still weak from feeding Mal. The others looked shell-shocked and ragged, and we’d been expected to survive down here for half a day? Fuck that. Redmond was insane but he’d had a point about this trial being dumb.

  “I’ll take Gimble,” Mal said. “I can carry him.”

  The nightblood looked flushed and filled with energy, not surprising since he’d supped on feyblood. The stuff was potent shit.

  Harmon passed Gimble to Mal.

  Hyde nodded. “Move carefully, keep silent. We got this.”

  “And if they wake up?” Thomas asked.

  Hyde’s nostrils flared slightly. “Then we fight.”

  But there were only a handful of us left and one of us was injured. If it came down to fighting a nest of hounds we were fucked, and everyone knew it.

  Deathly quiet it was, then.

  Hyde led the way down the tunnel. It widened and then the hum and rumble grew louder. The green glow was dimmer here, but there was enough light to see the hulking sleeping shadows of several hounds lying on the ground. Nooks and ledges dotted the walls and hounds were tucked into those or sprawled across them. So many hounds. Too many hounds.

  We were outnumbered two to one.

  Our shallow breaths mingled with the rumble of the sleeping hounds. Just a little way to go. The exit loomed ahead, dark and inviting. Don’t look back, just keep moving. How could Hyde be so nimble with his bionic leg.

  He moved fluidly, he moved silently. I mimicked him, placing my feet where he placed his, blocking out the fact we were surrounded by monsters.

  And then we were through the arch. Hyde pulled me aside and pressed me to the wall. His eyes gleamed in the darkness and his mouth parted on a soft exhale. I wanted to swallow it, to press myself to him and revel in the heat of his body and the beat of his heart.

  He blinked slowly and a silent communication passed between us, one that didn’t need words. One that said, we made it, we’re okay. One that said, later.

  The others began to join us in the tunnel beyond the nest and Hyde released me and ushered everyone forward.

  I counted heads as they came through. Almost there.

  A sharp male yelp cut through the hum of sleep.

  My body froze, tensing up in horror. Hyde’s gaze flew to mine and then back to the arch leading to the nest.

  Silence.

  Actual silence. No rumble. No sleep.

  “Oh fuck!” Hyde rushed forward, drawing his sword and pushing the cadets aside.

  I was right behind him.

  Someone screamed and then all hell broke loose.

  Thirty-One

  No time to think, no time to plan. My body was in auto-fight. My dagger slicing, cutting, maiming. I defended and attacked, rolled and ducked. The world was a blur of instinct and the potent scent of blood. Cadet blood. My blood. But wounds would heal.

  Keep going. Keep fighting.

  I caught a glimpse of Hyde putting himself between Gimble and a hound by shoving the feyblood back toward the exit.

  Thomas used one arm to support the feyblood and the other to beat back the hound that was intent on attacking them. I cut a swathe through the fray and buried my dagger in the hound’s head.

  Thomas’s gaze met mine.

  “Get him out.” I turned just in time to fend off a fresh hound.

  Shit, how many were there?

  Harmon and Mal fought back to back. Hyde? Where was he?

  There, in the center of things, surrounded as usual. It was like he attracted trouble. I rushed toward him, dagger at the ready. It sliced, snagged and drew yellow goop. Howls of pain, growls, and snarls cut the air, and then I was in the center and Hyde was cursing but there was a crazy grin on his face which swelled my heart. This felt right. It felt natural. We fell into sync, fighting as if it was a coordinated dance and it was as if we’d been doing this forever. As if it was meant to be. My limbs burned with euphoria as we brought down hound after hound until I was standing amidst a sea of bodies.

  My body was vibrating with energy. I turned to Hyde to find his gaze on me, dark and hungry and dangerous. Heat bloomed at my core. Want and desire and the desperate need for him to break and take me now. Fuck what was this? What was this violent, ravenous need aching and throbbing between us? He took a shuddering breath and shook his head as if to clear it.

  “We need to go. Now,” he said. “The scent of death will no doubt draw more hounds.”

  With a final lingering look my way, he climbed over the dead hounds and strode toward the exit.

  We were covered in goop, tired, and wary as we navigated the tunnels. Hyde moved faster than before, forcing us to keep up or lose our way.

  He finally came to a halt by a section of smooth rock. “Here,” he said.

  “What?” Harmon asked. “What are we looking at.”

  Hyde pressed his palm to the wall, and it shimmered to reveal a round hole. “Master Henrique put it in a few years ago,” Hyde said. “Only the shadow knights and the trial master know of its existence. It leads out of the catacombs.” Hyde ushered the first cadet into the hole. “Just keep climbing,” he instructed. Thomas went next.

  Harmon turned to me. “Now you.”

  Oh, crap, this was the moment. “I can’t.” I backed away.

  “Justice!” both Harmon and Hyde snapped at the same time. Agitation was rife in their tones.

  They exchanged surprised glances at the jinx moment.

  There was no time to argue. No time to debate. “Get out.” I turned away and focused on a spot of shadow. “I’ll find you, but you need to be outside.”

  I closed my eyes and visualized the route we’d come, praying I could find it again.

  “I’ll be back.” I turned away.

  “Justice!” Hyde growled. “I know you want to save Payne, but there’s no time. He wouldn’t want you to risk your life for him.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the exit.

  I tugged free of him. “I can phase there.”

  “Dammit, Justice, you have no idea where the lab is or how far it is from this exit.”

  I backed away from him. “I know the route. I’ll find it. I can’t leave him to die.”

  Something dark and desperate flashed across Hyde’s face. “Promise me, if you get stuck for time, if you get lost, promise me you’ll phase to me.”

  “I promise.”

  “What the fuck is going on?” Harmon asked.

  Hyde drew me close, his expression intense, his eyes burning across my face as if committing it to memory. “Do not die.”

  There were words between us, so many words, but neither of us spoke them. Instead, I pulled out of his arms and dove into shadows.

 
* * *

  Payne looked up as I stepped into the lab, but my vision went dark for a moment, and my knees grew weak.

  “Indigo.” Payne grabbed me in time to stop me from falling. “What did you do?”

  I brushed him off. “I carried Hyde into the catacombs. I’ll be fine in a minute.”

  “You managed to carry someone?” Payne’s eyes lit up.

  “Later. Let’s get you out of here first.”

  We turned to Madam Mariana to find her awake and sitting up.

  “What … What happened?” Her eyes widened when she realized where she was and who she was with. “Oh, no.”

  “Yes,” Payne said. “Redmond betrayed you. Now if you want to live, you better come with us.”

  Mariana stood on shaky legs. “How long?”

  I glanced at the clock. “Ten minutes.” I pulled open the door. “Mariana, you got any mojo?”

  She flexed her hands. “Yes.”

  “Good, because if we come across any morph hounds, then we’ll need you to use it.”

  We stepped out of the lab and into a foyer. A set of steel doors greeted us. Mariana used her palm print to open the doors, and then we were spilling into the catacombs.

  Which way? Shit.

  I let my gut take point through the catacombs. East. I had to go east. Howls and growls drifted toward us, but we moved away from them, and suddenly, the tunnels began to look familiar. We were on the right track. My legs buckled, and Payne grabbed me around the waist, hauling me up.

  I shook my head, willing my body to cooperate, and continued. “This is it. This is the way.” I picked up the pace, ignoring the burn in my limbs. The price for phasing too often in a short period, for carrying another person. Once we were out of there, I’d rest.

  The edges of my vision darkened. No. Not yet. Keep going, but we’d barely gone several feet when the thunder rumbled through the tunnel and the ground rocked.

  “Oh, no,” Payne said. “It’s happening.”

  The tunnel shook, and chunks of rock rained down on us.