~ The first man gave them six locations. The first yielded less than a dozen armed men in a small safe house. None of them had anything of value. They were just more foot soldiers following a cause they did not understand. Ava incapacitated them as she did the first man in the underpass. She didn’t feel it fair to kill them for being stupid. At the following two locations, Ava did the same thing, Penny snorting her disappointment. They were halfway through with no actionable information, leading them to the head of the snake.
Zeroing in on location number four, Ava felt a trace of shadow magic. They were in a train yard; the tracks occupied with unattached carriages. Some possibly in use, others left to gather rust and vagrant occupants. Penny picked up the trail leading the way to the source. She stopped Ava, stretching out a hand to block her path. Ava looked up at the werewolf, who had her n
~ Seeing the sign, Ava knew where they needed to be. Using another portal, she cut their journey short. They came through some distance away from their destination, intending to make the rest of the way on foot. They did not get far before they came under attack. “Shadows.” They broke away from the shadows of the trees coming at her and Penny from all angles. Confusion and panic tugged Ava’s mind in a million different directions. The only other person she knew who could wield shadow magic in this world was soul-dead on an examination table in Pentorium. Salvay had the magic he stole from the temple in Zanu, but it was one of light, not death. He would not have been able to do this. Several shadows tried to overpower Penny, one going for her soul. It looked like it was trying to suck a tennis ball through a
~Half of the ride to the courthouse went by in silence. Marx sat on the passenger side, staring through the window. He could feel Helick’s unease. His constant sideways glances. The other man had heard everything Anabella said. Celeste was Marx’s mate, but she raised Helick and Garrick from the time they were babies. She was the only mother they knew. Her death was as painful for them as it was for him, or even more. When the tragedy was fresh, he hadn’t taken that into account. Raw from the grief, Marx went off to lick his own wounds, leaving Garrick, Helick, Daniel, and Shea to tend their own. Shea found solace in going cold and distant while the twins and Daniel went out defending those who could not defend themselves. Lochlan was the only one who stayed with him on the Mountain. Not because Marx did much to accommodate him, but out of stubborn loyal
~Marx and Helick returned to Anax Corp to a message that the others were waiting for them. The first thing he noticed when he walked into Anabella’s office was Penny’s unconscious body on the sofa. He ran over to her, dropping to his knees. Her wolf was lying on Anabella’s couch, half of its body hanging off the side, the sofa too short to accommodate her full length. “Penny?” “I’m over here… too.” Marx turned to see Penny’s spirit waving at him. He slumped on the ground in relief. “You stupid girl.” “You grumpy old man.” Penny smiled, and it reached her eyes. Locked up inside of the beast, he sometimes forgot how innocent she was. How determined she had been. Despite the trouble she brought raging into his life, M
~ Ava opened a portal for Penny. The werewolf’s massive size did not allow her to pass through the door of the office with ease. On top of that, Penny on an elevator was not going to happen. Ava left with Anabella and Philippe, Helick following behind her. Before the three could step into the elevator, she called Philippe aside. The other two left without them. “What’s on your mind?” Philippe asked her. She adjusted the books in her hand. “Do you still have the chamber? The one you built for Sven?” “Yes, I do.” “Did you tell the others about it?” Ava glanced towards the door leading to Anabella’s office. Vescovi and Marx were still inside. The last thing she wanted was for either to hear their conversation, especially Marx. Ava appreciated him fretting over her
~Ava had an entire speech rehearsed. She knew that the decision she made would not go over well with the others, so she wanted to break it gently. All that went through the door when Daniel woke up inside of Sven’s body and went wandering off. Now the wolf was out of the bag in a big way, and she had just to face it head-on. With the deed already done, Ava had no plans to undo it. Not now. The ‘later’ would have to wait. “I’m sorry,” Daniel said from inside of Sven’s body. “Woke up and saw that I was—” he looked down at the body in which his soul now dwelled. “I knew you were going to do it, but it took some time for the whole thing to—catch up.” “You OK?” she asked him. Ava folded her arms across her chest. She wanted to hug Daniel. Touch him for the first time. He had kissed her once, but that was a long time ago, and her memory of the moment was fogg
~Shea was standing out in the woods. Another busload of evacuees was offloading outside of the dome. Waiting to greet them was the Native’s Shaman. In a line, the humans walked up to him, and he marked each human before they stepped into the protective shield. Those who were vampires or werewolves stepped through, unmarked their link to the shield created by what they were. Ichiro came to stand beside her. “This is not moving fast enough,” she said to him. Shea was feeling antsy, her anxiety building with the savagery of the storm overhead. “And what if vampires attack us? The humans might need a mark, but those like us do not.” “If anything supernatural tries to attack us, they will trigger the traps. Ava has this place fortified enough to keep the odds in our favor if we are.” Shea chewed on her lips, una
~Shadows rained down on them, a swarm of soul-sucking black mist. Though they knew an attack was imminent, the abruptness of it caught them off guard. Vescovi stood in the lobby where the casualties were being bagged and taken away. Numbered in the single digits, the toll would have been greater if it weren’t for Sven’s—Daniel’s quick thinking. Because of him, the entire building was now shielded from a full-on assault from the shadows. The men and women who were on the outside at the time were the ones who got their souls ripped from their bodies. For those who suffered injuries, Martha tended to them. Some needed bandages; others had injuries that required magical help. The woman was efficient; organized and collected during the turmoil. Ava made a good choice with her. Ava’s other selection still gave Vescovi pause. He watched Daniel as he charmed th
~Helick was on the roof of the yellow school bus. With him were five other men. They were providing cover for the protective detail on the ground while guarding the civilians below him inside the bus. Hana was keeping the panic down, using her voice to lull the passengers. This far away from Pentorium Helick’s comm, all of their comms, were useless outside of speaking to each other there on the outskirts of Chaise Point. He only hoped Yuri made it in range to signal the others that they needed additional support. Less than twenty feet away, one of the buses they were using for transport was wrapped around a pole. The shadows came for them, a black tide of death. They were out running before shadows got smart, going for the bus’s tires. The blowout had the driver losing control of the vehicle coming to a stop when it rammed headlong into a utility pole. The driver didn’t make it. He was the only casu