shaede assassin 05 - shadows at midnight

by amanda bonilla

  “Snarky comments from the crowd aren’t wanted or needed,” I said. “Let’s get him out of here and get our asses back to Seattle.

  “No kidding,” Louella chimed in. “This place creeps me out.”

  “I’ll run point,” Myles offered. “But who’s going to carry him?”

  “No one,” I said. I grabbed a rough, blood stained blanket from the nasty bed of straw in the corner of the cell. “We’ll turn this into a hammock and drag him out.” I tossed one end of the blanket to Julian. “Tie your ends together. It’ll help cocoon him in and the knots will act as handles.”

  “Good idea,” he replied. “So much easier than actually carrying him.”

  I tied my ends together and laid the blanket on the ground. “Okay, Ash you and Myles load him up. Liam, how’s your chest?”

  “I’m square,” he replied. “I can help carry.”

  “Good.” I turned a caustic eye to Tyler. “You didn’t have to hit him so hard, you know.”

  “Hey, you’re the one who sent him after me. It’s not like I had much of a choice.”

  Touché. “True. I just didn’t feel good about you stepping up to someone who’s mentally unstable and bashing him over the head.”

  “Believe me,” Tyler said. “Xander got plenty of licks in on our trip down here to get you. Don’t feel too bad for him.”

  There was definitely a story there, but I didn’t think I was quite ready to hear it yet. “Okay Myles, you and Ty take point. Ash and Liam can go next with Xander. Julian, Louella and I will guard our backs.”

  As everyone got into position I crossed the cell to where Padma’s body lay. I reached down and unfastened my pendulum from around her neck. My only regret was that I’d killed her before she could see me take back what was mine. I looped the pendulum around my neck and the emerald pulsed with a low light. Maybe it was as happy to be back around my neck as I was to have it there. I retrieved my dagger from Padma’s skull. The blade was clean. I shivered at the thought of the blade absorbing her blood. “You’ve been fed,” I murmured. “Hopefully it’s enough to keep you happy for a while.”

  With the daggers sheathed and the key to O Anel back where it belonged, I was finally ready to get the hell out of this place. “Think there’ll be retaliation?” I asked Tyler. I didn’t want to start some sort of supernatural gang war. We kill one of theirs, they kill one of ours… A never ending loop of revenge and retribution.

  “No,” he said with a cold finality. “I’ll make sure it never happens.”

  I believed him.

  #

  “On your toes. I don’t want anything getting the jump on us.”

  My barked command was met with stoic silence. Ty had conjured another orb of light and it floated out in front of us to guide the way out of the tunnels. Murmured voices sounded from up ahead and I didn’t think it was Xander’s condition they were discussing. The many demonstrations of Ty’s power in a place where it should have been null created a fair amount of suspicion in the ranks. I had to admit that I was right there with them. That didn’t mean I was going to let them all gossip and speculate about it though.

  The sound of heavy footfalls behind us sent my heart racing in my chest. “Get a move on!” I called to Asher and the others. “Don’t turn back. Get Xander out of here!” Tyler and I could handle any lingering threats. At least, I hoped so. Maybe it was the very magic that I feared that bolstered my courage when I should have been running for my fucking life. Instead, we turned to face our attackers, me with my daggers clutched tight in my fists, and Ty armed with nothing more than his good looks and the power that coursed through his veins.

  Funny, I didn’t doubt for a second that the unarmed Jinn had the advantage in this fight.

  Some of Padma’s guards had made it out of her lair alive and came after us. As thirsty for blood as any creatures I’d ever seen, they attacked with a ferocity that put us instantly in retreat. I held my ground as best I could and said a prayer of thanks for the daggers that were a godsend while fighting in such close quarters. They’d gotten a taste of a ghoul’s blood and apparently, they wanted more. In the near black of the underground tunnels, the steel winked as my arms swung out and I struck with the blades again and again.

  I didn’t know how Ty fought without weapons, but I was confident that he kept the upper hand. In fact, I didn’t think he even broke a sweat as a wave of energy crashed over me and a flash of light that dropped two Rakshasa as though they were puppets whose strings had been cut. I watched, rapt. His power seemed immeasurable.

  “Darian, to your left!”

  How in the hell he saw so far in this impenetrable dark was beyond me. I lunged to the right but I wasn’t fast enough and a sharp, serrated blade sank into the fleshy part of my upper arm. I swallowed down a shout, unwilling to give Asher and the others a reason to turn around and come back. A second ghoul joined his buddy to sink his blade into the upper right quadrant of my stomach. The blade went deep. He twisted the blade and yanked it free before stabbing me again, this time lower. A grunt of pain escaped my lips as I slumped against the cave wall and went to my knees.

  Not even magic daggers could save my bacon this time. My stomach lurched as I swallowed down a coppery tang. Not good. Without my quick healing to help me, I was screwed. A derisive bark of laughter escaped my lips. I guess the illusion of Azriel had been right: I wasn’t getting out of this place alive. Damn.

  Another rush of energy, and a flash of light brighter than any of the others barreled toward me. The two ghouls didn’t crumple to the ground like their friends. They turned to ash before my eyes, their bodies incinerated in an instant. My gaze met Ty’s and the brilliant hazel of his eyes seemed to spark with an otherworldly light before going dim. He rushed to me and caught me before I fell face-first to the ground.

  “It’s my own fault.” I pushed the words past the pain. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

  “Don’t worry.” Ty’s expression was so full of concern that it caused my heart to constrict in my chest. “I’ve got you, Darian.”

  “I’m not going to heal quickly enough. My stomach’s like hamburger thanks to the teeth on that blade. Get the fuck out of here, Ty. Make sure Ash and the others are safe.”

  He gave a rueful laugh. “Always so melodramatic.” He placed his open palm to the worst of the stab wounds and I sucked in a sharp breath. My skin chilled from the contact and the tingle of magic zinged from the deepest of my stomach wounds, to the other, and then raced up to my arm where I’d first been stabbed. The tissue repaired itself, my skin pulled as it knit back together, and the pain that had ripped through me dissipated.

  I collapsed against him and Tyler wrapped me in his arms. “I love you Darian. Nothing is ever going to touch you again.”

  The words should have filled me with reassurance. Instead, it only helped to solidify my fear. “I love you too, Ty.” I couldn’t say anything else. If I did, there wouldn’t be anything I could do to close the floodgates and we wouldn’t leave this place until he answered all of my questions, threats to our lives be damned.

  I couldn’t help but wonder, as Tyler helped me to stand, could he be killed? Somehow, I didn’t think I wanted to know the answer.

  With the last of Padma’s guards dead, our journey out of the labyrinth wasn’t quite as tricky as our way in. It didn’t take long to catch up to Asher and the others and luckily they hadn’t run into any snags along the way. Thanks to Ty’s earlier magical decimation, we didn’t have to worry about the goblins. And we already knew where the booby traps were, so avoiding them was a breeze. The minutes felt like hours as we continued our ascent to the surface. The labyrinth seemed endless, the many twists and turns might as well have drawn us deeper into the tunnels rather than show us a way out. It was too damned dark and disorienting. The air too damned stagnant. And my own worries made it difficult to draw even a meager breath. If only I could be as blissfully unconscious as Xander was right now.

  My ring rema
ined strangely dormant. As did any further demonstrations of magic from Tyler. I put that mystery to the back of my mind. There’d be time enough to deal with it later. The path we walked grew slowly steeper and my ears popped from the altitude change, which freaked me out because it felt as though we’d only started the uphill climb a few hundred yards ago. The glow of moonlight awaited us a football field’s length away and for the first time in what felt like months, my heart didn’t pound in my chest like a freaking kettle drum.

  We broke through the cave entrance like we’d breached the surface of a deep lake, all of us gasping for fresh air. A clear midnight sky opened up above us. Myriad stars twinkled and the Milky Way cut a bright swath through the dark canvas spread over our heads. It had been so long since I’d seen the night sky without the light of the city to blot out the brilliance of the stars. My breath hitched in my chest and I said a silent prayer of thanks to whoever might be listening in that vast and beautiful sky that we’d all made it out of there alive.

  “It feels too easy,” I said to no one in particular. I kept my gaze upward, enthralled by the natural beauty that spread out above me.

  “Too easy?” Asher sidled up to me. “I’m sorry, were you not with us on that nightmare? Goblins, illusions, flesh eating demons?”

  Ghouls decimated in a flash of light, stab wounds magically healed… “I expected it to take days,” I said. It sure as hell had felt like it. “It took Xander and Ty almost a month to get to me.”

  “It did take days.” Tyler didn’t move from where he stood several feet away. “We’ve been down there for longer than you think.”

  “Damn. Nothing surprises me anymore,” Asher said. “How many days do you think?”

  “Fifteen. Maybe twenty or more,” Tyler said. “Won’t know for sure until we get back.”

  I had to agree with Ash. After everything I’d been through, it was tough for anything to shock me at this point. The time displacement piqued my curiosity, though. “Another realm?” I asked Tyler.

  “Demon realm,” he replied.

  The world was full of little pockets. Areas of time and space that weren’t exactly connected to the timeline of the mundane plane. Like the door to Narnia, the entrance to the cave had taken us somewhere that had nothing to do with the world as we knew it. O Anel was one of those alternate realms. It just happened to be a little tougher to get into.

  “You didn’t think to mention that sooner?”

  Tyler shrugged. “I didn’t think it was pertinent.”

  What else didn’t he think was pertinent, I wondered. I twisted my ring. Right now it was just a hunk of metal. Nothing special. But earlier, it had been something more. Had been a source of power that I’d somehow managed to tap. In a place where magical energy was nullified no less.

  “Wherever we were,” Louella said, “I’m just glad we’re out of there.”

  “No fucking doubt,” Julian agreed. “I’m ready to get the hell out of here and go home.”

  From his makeshift hammock, Xander groaned. “He’s coming to,” I said. “I think that’s our cue to blow this Popsicle stand. Can we do it, Ty?”

  “I’m a little tapped out, but I think I can manage. One extra body shouldn’t matter too much. Just make sure your wish is specific, Darian.”

  “Got it.” We gathered in a circle under the cold desert sky. Asher knelt down and laid his hand on Xander’s arm and I took Ash’s hand, just to make sure we’d all be encompassed by the magic of my wish. I tilted my head up and filled my lungs with crisp, clean air. I’d never seen anything as beautiful as this midnight sky. I let my eyes drift shut and soaked in the quiet sounds of Goblin Valley as it lay in sleep. “I wish that Ash, Julian, Louella, Myles, Liam, Xander were all in Seattle, at Xander’s house with you and I, Tyler. Right now.”

  Cold magic held me in its grip and my heart sank when Ty didn’t grace me with my favorite cliché genie line. An invisible force tugged at my center and I fell. Fell away into the darkness, another insignificant star in an endless universe.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  We snapped back into time and space with a jolt. I stayed close to Ty while everyone else stumbled from the tight circle with gasps of air. Liam doubled over and emptied his guts right in the middle of Xander’s pristine and perfectly paved driveway.

  “Gods fucking damn it.” He spat, and straightened. “You can bet your ass I’m never traveling that way again.”

  “I hear ya,” Asher replied. “Sorry, Ty but I don’t think I’ll be flying Jinn-Air anymore.”

  I took a step away and Tyler’s fingers wrapped around my upper arm. He pulled me to him and a worried crease furrowed his brow as his eyes searched mine for a long moment. A strange desperation thickened the air between us but neither of us spoke. I reached up and combed my fingers through his hair, hoping that the act would reassure him somehow. Ease whatever it was that pulled his muscles taut with worry.

  “I need to take care of some business,” he said at last. “Will you be okay here without me?”

  Nervous energy skittered through me. “I can take it from here,” I said. I couldn’t help but wonder what business was so pressing that he’d cut and run. It sure as hell wasn’t because he was nervous about facing Raif again. “You did more than your fair share. I’ll help get Xander settled, brief Raif, and then I’m outta here.”

  “I’ll meet you back at your place later?”

  “Okay,” I said slowly. “Is everything all right?”

  Ty gave me a slow smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Fine.” He gave me a quick kiss. “I’ll see you later.”

  He poofed out of thin air and left me with nothing more than a ghost of the sensation of his touch.

  I left my worry at the back of my mind and turned my attention to a situation I could control. “Let’s get him inside,” I said as I headed up the stairs. “I need all of you to stick around in case he comes to and is combative.”

  “Don’t you mean when he comes to and is combative?” Asher asked.

  “In the vault,” I reminded everyone.

  I hoped that Xander’s mind was intact enough for him to grip reality once he had a chance to accept what he saw. I burst through the door with a shout. “Raif! Raif!” And before we could carry Xander across the threshold I was met by a handful of guards with Raif pushing his way up from behind them.

  “Good gods,” he murmured as he looked down at Xander, wrapped in the rough and dirty blanket. “Is he alive?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “But he’s not doing so hot.”

  Raif released a long sigh. His shoulders slumped with relief and he stared at Xander for the barest of moments before he started barking orders. “Get Mason over here. Now! I want security tripled as of this second. Call in any and all favors. I don’t care who’s here be it Fae, Fury, or Wraith. If they can wield a weapon, I want them here. Not a word as to what’s going on or why we need the security. If a single syllable is whispered about his condition, I’ll kill you myself. I want the blinds drawn. No windows uncovered. Anya! We have him!”

  Bodies scattered with Raif’s shouted commands. Anya appeared at the top of the staircase, incredibly agile for someone so enormously pregnant that she looked ready to pop at any second. Her tunic flowed out behind her as she rushed down the stairs and her violet eyes flashed with swirling emotions. She took one look at Xander: unconscious, bloody, and caked with grime before pulling her arm back and letting it fly.

  The open-palmed slap bit across my cheek. I clamped my jaw tight and resisted the urge to hit her back. I wasn’t about to assault a pregnant woman and besides, I was well aware of the fact that Xander was in his current state because of me. I hadn’t expected a warm welcome from someone who was at best a bitter rival.

  “You done?” I asked her, my own brow arched curiously. “Or do you want a shot at the other cheek?”

  “Anya,” Raif warned. She took a step back though her gaze continued to burn a hole through me.

  “Where do y
ou want him?” I asked Raif.

  “His suite,” he answered. “I have someone fetching his private physician.” The group moved as a whole toward the stairs and Raif held up a hand. “Asher and you only. No one else besides Anya and me will be permitted past the door.”

  Raif wasn’t taking any chances. I trusted my team. Deep down, I knew he did too. But this was about more than trust. This was about a kingdom. Xander’s kingdom. The one thing he prized above everything.

  “Where do you want them?” I jerked my head toward the four Shaedes waiting patiently for their orders.

  “They’ll guard the staircase and the second story. No one is permitted past the landing unless specifically approved by me, understand?”

  He was answered with four sharp nods.

  Getting Xander up the stairs was almost trickier than getting him out of that damned labyrinth. Luckily, Raif and Asher easily managed Xander’s weight and lifted the makeshift hammock high enough to prevent smacking his head on the stairs as they rushed him up to his suite. Long, rasping moans signaled that things were about to go from bad to worse as he regained consciousness. I couldn’t imagine that he’d wake up lucid and calm.

  “Raif, we need to talk.”

  “Later,” he said as he negotiated his end of the hammock into the room.

  They hefted Xander up and laid him gently on the bed. He stirred, and Raif leaned over his brother. “You’re home, Alexander,” he said.

  With a speed that belied his current debilitated state, Xander reached out and seized Raif by the collar. A low snarl vibrated in his throat as he said from between clenched teeth, “I know better than to trust an illusion.” His fist swung out and caught Raif on the jaw. He reeled backward and I caught him before he had the chance to land on his ass. “Padma!” Xander railed, “I’m going to kill you for what you’ve done!”

  “Can we talk now?” I asked.

  “Yes.” Raif swiped away a trickle of blood from his lip. “Let’s.”

  “He might need to be restrained,” I said for Raif’s ears alone.