Caitlin’s stomach clenched, her heart pounding as she watched him fearlessly square up to the creature.
If it could sneer, she was sure she saw an attempt to. ‘You dare to command me, vampire?’ it said, drawing out vampire with disdain, its voice huskier than the feminine frame it embodied would have allowed.
‘I dare and I do,’ Kane said. ‘Do my bidding, sphariga, and I will give you what you seek.’
Caitlin couldn’t see enough of Kane’s face, but from the indignation in the soul ripper’s eyes, he was glaring right at it.
The soul ripper didn’t move, its stare melting into Kane in rage.
The thought that those eyes were the last things her parents had seen filled her with renewed anger. She had no doubt what form it had taken to appear to her mother and how cruel that would have been.
It drew its lip back slightly in a snarl, losing the feminine features it had stolen. ‘You took it?’
‘Yes,’ Kane said. ‘Do as I say or I will kill your prize.’
It leaned back in an unnatural bend, the wrath and, at the same time, horror emanating from its eyes. Whatever it was thinking, it believed Kane and it didn’t want to lose what it had come for. Namely her.
The soul ripper was quick. It drew a clear line towards Caitlin, charging at her with an unnatural balance, defying gravity as it leapt onto the thin ridge of the footboard in one easy move before pouncing in front of her.
She flinched and it snarled.
Then it withdrew.
Its head snapped towards Kane.
And it nodded.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The soul ripper sat in the back of the car in the middle of the seat, its hands in its lap, its attention fixed ahead.
Caitlin looked across at Kane for reassurance and he glimpsed across at her, sending her a wink. She turned her attention back out of the passenger-seat window, trying to ignore the tension in her chest from having that thing behind her. The thing that had filled her nightmares for seven years. The thing that had murdered both her parents and was itching to kill her. The thing void of emotion because it felt none. It had one purpose and that one purpose alone had driven it to bargain with Kane.
Kane drove down the slope and along the length of the chain-link fence, before driving through the gateway into the wasteland. It was unnervingly still outside, unnervingly silent. Caitlin surveyed the warehouse in the distance, the dark, stormy clouds its backdrop.
He pulled inside the derelict building, his headlights igniting a stone pillar as they passed. He couldn’t have picked a more perfect location to enact his revenge.
He turned the car around and reversed so he was facing the doors, then shut off the engine and looked across at her. ‘Are you okay?’
She nodded. ‘This is where they did it, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is this where you found her?’
He nodded.
Caitlin looked back out of the window and scanned the dark and murky expanse before looking back at him. ‘You’ve planned every last detail.’
‘I’ve had a long time to do it.’ He took his phone out of his jeans and checked the time. ‘Carter should be here any minute.’
‘What am I to do?’
‘You stay quiet.’ He held her gaze. ‘I mean it, Caitlin. As far as Carter’s concerned, you’re here against your will.’
She nodded and followed him out of the car.
Their doors echoed as they slammed each in turn. She strolled around to the bonnet and leaned back against it, Kane coming to sit beside her.
‘He won’t come unarmed, Kane. He’s not stupid.’
‘It’ll make no difference.’
‘What if he just takes you down?’
‘He won’t. He’s waited for this moment longer than I have.’
‘What did you say to him?’
Kane looked across at her. ‘What I needed to get him here.’
‘Do you really think he believes you’re going to give yourself up?’
‘All he’ll see is a compromise, but that’s good enough for him.’
‘What if he does take you down, Kane? What do I do then?’
‘You’ll live. Just soulless until they let me go.’
She frowned. ‘And what about the soul ripper?’
‘Everything is accounted for.’
‘Plans fail, Kane.’
He looked back ahead. ‘Not mine.’
Caitlin followed his gaze to the doors – to the distant sound of engines and tyres over shale.
Within minutes, a sleek black car pulled up, two vans lining up either side of it. Another larger van drove past them all and stopped to the right of Kane’s car.
The vans either side of the car opened. Four black-clad soldiers dismounted from each, forming a circle around Kane and Caitlin. They lifted their tranquiliser guns in perfect unison, aiming directly at Kane.
‘You sure better know what you’re doing,’ Caitlin whispered to him.
He looked across at her and smiled. ‘Have you learned nothing?’ He stood up from the bonnet, his attention focused on the car as its doors opened.
Three more black-clad soldiers stepped out, equally raising their guns. And, following behind them, was Xavier Carter. He strode forward a few steps then stopped about fifteen feet away, hands tucked deep in his long coat. ‘Hello, Kane,’ he said, a glimmer of satisfaction overriding the uncertainty behind his grey eyes.
Kane took a few casual steps towards him, the guns following his every step. ‘I see you’ve brought your friends.’
‘I’m no fool, Kane. You know that.’
‘I could take offense.’
‘I’d prefer you take it as a compliment.’
‘Have you brought what I wanted?’
Xavier nodded to one of the soldiers who in turn advanced towards the third van. He banged his fist on the door three times.
The lycans were led out in turn and, from their lack of fight, they were clearly heavily drugged. They were gagged, blindfolded, their hands bound behind their backs, their ankles linked by chains.
Caitlin glowered across at Xavier. Xavier who had handed them over so easily to the fate they should never have been facing. And, as he met her gaze, she felt sick with fury, more so at the glint of approval in his eyes as if she had done a job well.
‘And I see you’ve brought Caitlin back safe and well.’
‘As per our agreement,’ Kane said.
The soldiers shoved the lycans over to the concrete post, kicked them onto their knees and secured them to it.
‘I’m glad you finally took me up on my offer,’ Xavier said. ‘I hope this is the first step in the right direction.’
‘So much for your claimed protection of everyone in your care,’ Kane remarked.
‘I have no sympathy with what they have done. I understand your need for vengeance for your sister. Who am I to stand in your way?’ He took another step towards him. ‘I’m willing to do what it takes, Kane. To convince you that you can trust me. Of what a formidable force we can become. This territory will be yours. You’ll never want for anything again.’ He held out his hand towards the lycans. ‘See this as the first offering of my loyalty. You only had to ask for them. This is how it will be. You ask and I’ll give.’
‘Humans and vampires will never be able to form an alliance – not a true alliance. We are both too inherently in need of control.’
‘But that’s not to say a vampire and a human who will mutually benefit cannot work together. Keep your territory under control – that’s all I ask. And enforce what I need you to enforce. And in return, I will let you do whatever you want to do with no fear of retribution. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain, Kane.’
‘Loyal to me, but not to your own, is that right?’ Kane asked.
Xavier took a step closer to him and lowered his voice. ‘I will do whatever it takes to have this happen.’ Xavier clicked his fingers and held out his open palm towa
rds one of the soldiers.
The soldier marched over to the car and came back with a small wooden box. He placed it in Xavier’s hand and stepped back.
Xavier took a few more steps closer to Kane, the soldiers closing in on them a little more.
As Xavier opened the box, Caitlin pulled herself off the bonnet to take a few steps closer.
The tension in Kane seared through her.
‘They told me where they’d stored it. I told you I’d kept it safe,’ Xavier said.
‘I knew you would have,’ Kane said, Caitlin knowing him well enough now to know it was the tension of restraint. ‘You’re not going to squander a trophy like that, are you?’
Caitlin’s heart pounded audibly in her ears.
‘Not a trophy for me, Kane. I wasn’t the one who tore it out of her body.’ He glanced across at the lycans. ‘I’m not the beast that guts its victims like they were animals.’ He looked back at Kane. ‘It’s my gift to you. The final sealing of our loyalty. Arana’s heart and the blood of the lycans who murdered her,’ he held his hand towards Caitlin, ‘and the soul of a shadow reader to complete the resurrection.’
Panic encompassed her. Sickness burned the back of her throat as she drew level enough to stare down at the withered heart in the sickening epiphany moment.
She stared back at Xavier in horror.
He smiled.
Resurrection. Arana back. The only thing Kane would ever bargain for. What Kane had been planning all along now hit her like a concrete wall.
And she’d fallen for it.
But it wasn’t him she lunged at – it was Xavier.
‘You’re nearly as ruthless as me,’ Kane said to Xavier, wrapping his arms around Caitlin and tugging her against his chest to restrain her effortlessly as he clamped his hand over her mouth. ‘Sacrifice all to get what you want. That’s dedication. Maybe you and I are alike after all.’
‘I’m glad you’re beginning to see it.’
His words paralysed her. If Kane hadn’t held her so tight, she would have dropped to the floor, the distance in his eyes as he focused on Xavier chilling her.
‘You see, Kane – I can bring light out of the darkness. Those beasts stole your sister from you, but I’m giving her back to you. This is how it can be. We can do immeasurable things.’
He didn’t know. Xavier was still clueless. Caitlin’s heart pounded. He still hadn’t worked out that Kane knew he was responsible. Somewhere in-between, they had made this deal and it clearly had seemed like a perfectly reasonable exchange to Xavier if it had got him there.
She glanced anxiously around at the soldiers. Kane was going to kill them all. Somehow he was going to end it all.
She needed to yell at Xavier and warn him. She needed to give her unit a chance. She shouldn’t have hesitated. Kane had clearly betrayed her. He had tricked her, just like he’d tricked the others.
But as her heart splintered enough for her to cry out, Kane, as if sensing it, weaved his free fingers into hers, squeezed lightly, the private exchange of his thumb sliding over her hand enough to make her hesitate.
‘You understand me,’ Kane said, words that could have been directed at her as much as they were at Xavier.
‘That’s right,’ Xavier said. ‘I understand you perfectly.’
‘Then nothing I do will surprise you,’ Kane said, gently easing Caitlin away from him.
She reluctantly took a few steps back and looked over her shoulder as the rear passenger door of Kane’s car opened.
But it was no longer the image of her mother that stepped out. She saw the head first, the long dark hair. There was no mistaking the porcelain skin or the large dark eyes.
The soul ripper stood perfectly still, its head tilted slightly to the side, those eyes staring intently across at Xavier.
He glanced around the room nervously as if checking it wasn’t an apparition of his own mind, searching to see if anyone else could see what he could. They could, but they kept their guns on Kane.
‘Impossible,’ Xavier said, staring at the likeness of Arana as it approached. ‘It’s impossible. What is this?’
Caitlin took a wary couple of steps back.
‘Impossible as you arranged her death so perfectly,’ Kane said, his arms folded.
Xavier stared back at him in shock. ‘You know?’
Kane held his gaze. ‘Just as I know what my sister cursed the Parish line with.’
Xavier’s attention snapped back to the soul ripper, his frown deep as he tried to work out what was happening.
‘I know things you could never know, Carter. I know third-species secrets that will never fall under your knowledge – and all this is an example of why. Your kind has an agenda – always has had and always will have. Under your guidance and control, all hell would break loose in this district. So, as I keep telling you – no, I will never work with you.’
‘You’re a fool, Kane,’ Xavier said, trying to look calm. But even from where she was stood, Caitlin could see the perspiration trailing down his temple. ‘It doesn’t have to come to this.’
‘Come to what, Carter? Me getting you to accept my refusal once and for all?’
Xavier glanced nervously at the soul ripper again as it stood beside Kane. He looked back at Kane. ‘But your sister. You must have the shadow reader’s soul for it to work.’
‘A lie to get you here. I can’t bring her back. My sister has gone, Carter,’ Kane said. ‘You saw to that. But she left me this legacy,’ he said, pointing at the soul ripper. ‘Just so I’d know how to track you all down.’
Xavier backed up further as the soul ripper stalked towards him, its eyes fixed on his. He lifted his hand to command the soldiers to shoot, but the soul ripper was quicker.
The guns were simultaneously ripped from their hands first, smashing into the walls behind them. In perfect timing, the men were lifted swiftly and horizontally into the air before being slammed down onto the floor on their backs.
Panic flared in Xavier’s eyes as he scanned the room before looking back at the soul ripper. He took a few wary steps back. ‘What’s it doing?’
‘What I’ve told it to do.’
The soldiers writhed as if in agony then slowly their ethereal bodies rose from within them, the phosphorous glow of their souls still intact, hovering a couple of feet above their unconscious forms like translucent shadows.
‘I could have killed you before now, Carter,’ Kane continued. ‘So many times. But I resolved this was worth the wait.’ He strolled back over to the car, placed the wooden box containing Arana’s heart safe on the driver’s seat before coming back out with a dagger. He spun it in his hand as he sauntered over to the two lycans. ‘You have to be stopped, Carter,’ he said as he carved an A for Arana into their foreheads.
As he turned to face Xavier again, Xavier took a step back.
‘You can’t do this, Kane. Everyone will know. You’ll be finished. I protect you. My no-touch policy on you is the only thing that keeps you alive.’
‘We’ll find out soon enough, won’t we?’
Xavier stumbled backward as the soul ripper closed the gap. ‘Get away from me!’ he demanded, falling against the bonnet of his car. ‘You hear me? Stay away from me! Keep it away from me, Kane!’
‘You have no idea how hard it’s been waiting this long,’ Kane announced, following behind it. ‘But I knew when it was coming back, you see. All I had to do was find a way to command it. I just had to take the one thing it craved – Caitlin’s soul. And then I could make it do whatever I wanted it to.’
‘Stop it,’ Xavier said, his tone laced with panic. ‘Stop it and I will do whatever you want.’
‘I don’t need anything from you. Max and Rob are about to go live with confessions of exactly what they and you did. You’re finished, Carter. But prison is too good for you. Death at my hand, however agonizing I could make it, is too good for you. It’s going to tear out your astral body and soul and take you into an eternity of slavery. Just
like what happened to Rick and Kathleen Parish.’
The soul ripper arched its back, ethereal white tendrils streaming from its body, lunging towards Xavier’s chest.
He screamed as he fell back against the bonnet. ‘Whatever you want!’
As Kane stepped back, as he glanced across at the soul ripper, as its tendrils lunged into Xavier’s chest, Caitlin flinched and momentarily turned away.
That was what happened to them. That was the cruelty that stole her parents from her. Her life. Her dreams. Her peace of mind. And it was coming after her. Within minutes, it would turn on her, ready for Kane to meet his side of the bargain.
‘I know about the prophecy!’ Xavier cried out, his tone wretched. ‘The secret.’
Caitlin snapped back to look at him.
‘I know what you need!’ Xavier added. ‘I know what you need to make it happen! I can get it!’
‘Wait!’ Kane commanded the soul ripper, his hand raised.
It ceased and looked back over its shoulder at him. Its tendrils disappeared back inside its body.
Xavier sank to the floor as Kane stepped over and crouched in front of him.
‘And how do you know what’s needed?’ Kane asked.
Xavier stared at him warily.
Caitlin took a couple of steps closer.
If Xavier bargained with him, if Kane had reason to keep him alive, Kane could kill the soul ripper. Her pulse raced. She wouldn’t have to resort to what she’d planned. It could work out. But at what cost? She stared back at Xavier. Selfish to the end. He couldn’t seriously be talking about helping the vampires fulfil the prophecy. It was everything he stood against. Everything she worked for to stand against.
Enraged by Xavier’s silence, Kane grabbed him by the throat. ‘How do you know?’ he asked, his tone dangerously low.
‘Call it off,’ Xavier said. ‘Give me your word you’ll call it off and I’ll tell you.’
‘You’ll tell me now,’ he said as he squeezed.
‘You won’t kill me. You said it yourself that I deserve worse. Give me your word. Give me your word and I’ll tell you.’
The seconds ticked by.
‘You have my word,’ Kane said.
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