by Anna Argent
Books by Anna Argent
The Lost Shards
Shards of Blood and Shadow
Shards of Light (a novella in The Secret She Keeps)
A Brush With Fate
Sing Me to Sleep
The Whisper Lake Series
The Longest Fall
The Sweetest Temptation
The Biggest Risk
The Taken
Taken by Storm
Taken by Surprise
Taken by Force
The Stone Men
Made Flesh
Heart of Stone
Sing Me to Sleep
by
Anna Argent
Sing Me to Sleep
The Lost Shards Series, Book Three
By: Anna Argent
Published by Silver Linings Media, LLC
Copyright © 2019 by Silver Linings Media, LLC
ISBN: 978-1-945292-22-4
All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law. For permission requests, contact the author at [email protected].
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locations is entirely coincidental.
Cover art: Dar Albert
Editing: Julie Finley
Table of Contents
Books by Anna Argent
Title Page
Copyright Page
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
About the Author
Chapter One
Stygian Attis had not planned to kill anyone on his first solo mission for the Riven.
His boss, Starry Mandrake, had finally deemed him ready, a title few as young as he had ever earned. Men his age rarely possessed enough discipline and self-control to hold themselves back from killing those they hunted, but Stygian’s entire life had been about discipline and self-control. His grandfather had made sure of that.
Stygian still had the scars to remind him of his lessons.
He was determined to prove Starry right, to make her proud. It was the least she deserved after saving his life.
The voices in Stygian’s head were louder than usual, urging him to hurry. The slivers of ancient souls seemed restless, excited.
Something was going to happen tonight. Something big.
Prophecy.
The word rolled around in his mind, taunting him.
He knew prophecy was real. He believed. He just didn’t believe that it could touch someone like him. He was no one—barely more than a kid, which was something his allies loved to remind him.
Still, he had a gut feeling that whatever was coming next would change everything.
At twenty-two, he was eager for it. Bring on the bad guys, let them come at him from all sides. He’d trained for this moment from the time he could hold a weapon. He’d taken more beatings than most hunters twice his age, though, perhaps not in the same way. He knew he was tough, that he could survive almost anything.
He was ready.
The night was cold and clear. Winter had a chokehold on the upper Midwest as if it was determined to strangle the life from it before spring could come to the rescue. He was in a quiet suburb of Milwaukee. The last snowfall still gleamed across the landscape where the filth and slush of traffic couldn’t reach it.
He’d left his ride a few blocks away. The voices were whispering in his head—fragments of shattered souls he carried—but he couldn’t hear them clearly over the sound of the engine. He needed to be on foot, in the stillness of the cold, dry air.
He needed to listen.
Find her. Save her. This voice was faint. Weak. It struggled to be heard over the rasp of a much louder voice urging him in an entirely different direction.
Kill her.
Stygian wasn’t going to kill anyone. Both Starry and his grandfather had drilled that into his head. If he killed one of the Vires, he’d absorb their shards—the splintered, twisted souls they carried.
If he killed them, he could become like them.
He’d seen what those people could do often enough to know that he couldn’t let them infect him. The darkness he’d already inherited shortly after his birth was enough of a burden to bear.
He walked quietly through the deserted streets, his footfalls light so he could hear whispers guiding him where to go.
All the shops in this quaint, gentrified part of town were closed for the night. Most of them were little boutiques, salons and cafes. The only lights left on inside were those meant to ward off thieves and anyone desperate enough for warmth to break in.
No one else was around. It was too cold to be out. Sane people were at home, eating dinner or watching TV.
Above him, stars shone down between streetlights. The air smelled of woodsmoke. Lazy plumes of mist curled from his nostrils, evaporating instantly in the dry air.
He was close. He could feel his shards’ excitement growing. Whatever he was here for, he would soon find it.
Stygian reached into his coat pocket and wrapped his fingers around the butt of his Glock. The gun was a risk, but he’d spent hours learning how to incapacitate, rather than kill. He knew where all the major arteries were, and how to avoid them in a moving target.
It didn’t hurt that his shards allowed him to see an attack coming an instant before it happened.
He had already taken down three of his enemies, who now resided inside prison cells far more comfortable than they deserved.
It was strange to him that his enemies lived an easier, more pleasant life than he’d known while his grandfather had been alive. The killers had beds, clean clothes, plenty of food. They were given books to ward away boredom and never had to fear physical harm.
They were protected.
Stygian wondered if they knew what a luxury that was.
A strange, scratching sound floated on the frigid air. There was a loud squeak, like an animal’s scream, and then a soft, exhausted sob.
A woman’s voice.
He rounded a corner that led into a service alley. The pavement was pockmarked with potholes filled with frozen slush. The alley was narrow, running behind a spa and a barber shop. The back of the alley was bordered by a sagging chain link fence choked with winter-dead brush. Behind that was a larger building with its lights still on. A library.
An old Volvo sat beside a dumpster. Its engine was running. Steam curled up from its tailpipe. The front doors were wide open. Hanging out of the passenger side was a young girl with long, blond hair. Her feet we
re still on the front seat. One of her tennis shoes had fallen off. Her arms were stretched out toward something he couldn’t see.
Her head was barely attached to her body.
The flesh was ragged and torn, like it had been chewed by gnarled teeth. Steam curled up from a pool of blood that was already beginning to freeze beneath her.
Stygian had seen plenty of blood in his lifetime—much of it his own. He’d seen death. He’d seen violence. But somehow, seeing this girl who couldn’t have been out of her teens lying dead in the alley hit him hard.
He sucked in a cold breath that tasted like her blood.
That scratching sound came again, and this time he could tell it was close.
He eased toward the girl as he pulled out his Glock.
A high, feminine whimper rippled through the air only to be driven away by a gust of artic wind.
Hurry! The voice warning him was so urgent, it punched his heart to speed its beat.
No more time for stealth. He had to move.
He rushed the last few feet down the access road leading to the alley. He turned his body as he cleared the corner of the building to find the source of the sound.
In his mind, he saw what was there an instant before he laid eyes on it.
There was a giant, furry creature there, the size of a mountain lion. It was in the shadows, too dark to see exactly what it was, but he knew it wasn’t good. It wasn’t natural.
The creature was dragging a woman’s limp body down the dark alley, away from the dead girl.
Stygian lifted his gun and fired. The bullet bounced off of the thing’s thick hide, but it dropped the woman and ran, letting out a pained scream as it went.
Stygian gave chase, but only made it a few yards when a woman’s voice stopped him cold.
“Please,” she said. “Help me.”
He looked down at the poor woman who lay limp and motionless on the dirty pavement. She was face down. Her hair was wet with blood. Her puffy coat was shredded. More blood wet the fluff spilling from her coat. There were deep gashes in her skin. He could see chewed flesh between her shoulder blades, all the way down to her spine.
The arms of her coat were bloody tatters. She’d tried to fight, to save herself and the girl. The blood and fur under her torn fingernails told him that much.
He knelt down, but didn’t put away his gun. The Vires liked to play games. He didn’t trust them not to pretend to be injured so he’d let down his guard—another painful lesson learned by his grandfather’s hand.
Slowly, Stygian reached down and eased her onto her back.
As soon as he saw her mangled face, he knew she wasn’t pretending. He could see the ragged bite marks in her cheeks, the pain and fear welling from her eyes. Blood covered her features, flowing in sluggish streaks down into her hair.
He thought she might have been pretty once, before her flesh had been ravaged and painted in blood. The wrinkles around her eyes told him she was older, maybe in her late forties.
“My baby,” she whispered through clumsy lips. Tears streamed openly down her temples, taking with them drops of blood to stain her pale hair. “It killed my baby.”
Stygian steeled his heart against this woman’s grief. He had been trained not to let emotions rule him, not to let them cloud his judgment.
He was glad for that training now and the armor it offered.
His voice was steady and empty of warmth when he said, “I’m sorry.”
Why wasn’t she trying to sit up? Her injuries were extensive, but she wasn’t bleeding out, though he supposed she still could if he didn’t slow the bleeding.
Was she in shock? Was she too overwhelmed by grief to move?
He didn’t think it was an act. His power to see a moment into the future showed him no signs of attack.
Stygian slid his gun back into his pocket and pulled off his stocking cap. He pushed it beneath her and used it to apply pressure to the worst of her wounds—a savage gash along her spine.
She didn’t even grunt in pain.
“Please, help me,” she said.
“I’ll call an ambulance. Just hang on.”
“No!” she said too quickly. “My daughters. He’s going to go after my daughters.”
“Who is?”
She didn’t answer his question. “No time.” Her gaze moved to the body of the young girl half in, half out of the car. “I can’t lose them too.”
Tears fell from her eyes faster now.
Stygian shifted his position to block the woman’s line of sight to the dead girl. No mother deserved to see that—not even one as cowardly as his own.
“Please, help me,” she begged.
His heart squeezed before he could stop it. Sympathy would do him no good. He was amazed that every last drop of it hadn’t been beaten out of him, that there was any left for him to give.
He had to stay strong, emotionless. He couldn’t let himself be affected by this woman’s pain. “What do you want me to do?”
She met his gaze and there was a fierceness there that snagged his attention and refused to let go. “Kill me. Now. Before it’s too late.”
He recoiled, moving physically away from her in his shock and revulsion.
“I can’t.”
Kill her, a voice inside of him whispered.
Save the girl, chanted another.
“You have to. There’s no time. I’m paralyzed. Even if I don’t die, I won’t be able to protect my girls.” She sobbed, choking. “My sweet Harmony. She was never meant to sing alone.”
The woman was delirious now. From her injuries or grief? From the cold?
It hardly mattered. She wasn’t making any sense.
The woman gathered herself with a visible force of will. “I know what you are. I know what you have inside of you. I can see it.”
She meant his shards.
The splintered souls he carried bristled with unease.
Kill her, rasped one of them.
Save the girl! shouted the loudest.
“My girls won’t survive the night without what’s inside of me. You have to kill me. I can’t do it myself—can’t move. Please.”
He’d been trained not to kill because if he did, he could inherit the shards of others. But if this woman had an heir—a daughter—then those shards would go to her instead of him.
Kill her!
Save her!
Kill her!
Hurry!
He couldn’t. He wouldn’t.
“I know what you’re thinking—that you can’t do it. But you can. You’re strong. I can see it in your eyes.”
“There has to be another way,” he said, sounding younger and less experienced than he believed himself to be only moments ago.
“There isn’t. The Vires are after my youngest girl. She can’t fight without what’s inside of me. Can’t survive. He already killed one of my girls.” A sob splintered her voice and sent the pitch soaring. “Please, don’t let him take another. Please.”
“I can’t.”
“You can. You must. I’m dying anyway, just not fast enough to save my baby.” Desperation trembled through every word she spoke. Tears streamed from her eyes, leaving clean paths through the blood at her temples.
Kill her!
Save her!
“Please. Save my daughters,” she begged.
Stygian tried to imagine what it would have been like to have a mother who loved him so much she’d sacrifice her life, rather than one who’d killed herself to escape him.
In the end, that was the thing that changed his mind. These girls—wherever they were—had a mother this loving and selfless. Who was he to steal that gift from them because he was a coward, because he was squeamish, because he was trying to follow the rules?
His grandfather had raised him to be hard and cold for a reason. Maybe this was it. Maybe this was how he served.
He’d never considered himself a killer, but every killer had a first time. Maybe this was his.
&n
bsp; “Are you sure?” he asked, his voice frigid steel.
The relief that crossed her face was palpable. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”
“You could live. I could take you to a hospital. It doesn’t have to end like this.”
“And yet somehow, I always knew it would.” She pulled in a shuddering breath. “It’s okay. I’ve prepared for this. I’m ready.”
“Tell me again that you’re sure, that you want to die.”
“I’m sure. I want to die so my girls can live.”
Something in his chest shifted, hardened.
“Okay then,” he said, his words as quiet as a grave. “I’ll do it.”
“Thank yo—”
Before she finished, he fired a round through his coat, into her head. He didn’t even pull his gun from his pocket first.
He didn’t want her to see it coming and feel even a moment of fear.
She was gone in an instant, before the echo of his shot finished settling in the darkness. Blood seeped out under her broken skull. Her sightless blue eyes stared at the cold stars.
A woman as selfless as she was deserved better than this—better than a bloody death in an alley with the corpse of her daughter nearby—but in the world of the shards, this was as good as it got.
Chapter Two
Tulsa, Oklahoma, eight years later
Stygian Attis had spent his life fighting the Vires, but he’d never had to kill one in his own bedroom before.
He paused with his hand on the doorknob. His power to see a moment into the future told him what he’d find as soon as he opened the door, but it didn’t explain how he sensed that the next few steps he took would alter the course of his life forever.
Anticipation of the kill hummed in his veins. His limbs relaxed and loosened as they prepared for a fight. Combat was his domain, and he welcomed it like an old friend.
He wasn’t alone inside this industrial-building-turned-home they called Asgard. There were half a dozen others here that he could have summoned to help him fight. Just behind him, in the open area that served as living, dining, exercise room and kitchen, he could hear the voices of his allies as they shared a meal. All he had to do was wave a hand, and in seconds, he’d have backup.
But that wasn’t what he wanted. He preferred to hunt alone, to kill alone, to be certain that the power he’d find on the other side of his bedroom door would be his for the taking.