Blood Shadows

by Lindsay J. Pryor

  Caitlin sighed with momentary relief, albeit muted. But it couldn’t be true. Kane wouldn’t give up that easily. He was just getting what he wanted.

  Xavier hesitated for a moment longer before saying, ‘Feinith. Feinith told me.’

  Feinith? The only Feinith Caitlin knew of was one of the Higher Order vampires. She was one of the diplomats with the Global Council and occasionally communicated with the TSCD on particular matters, but only those related to strategic vampire management issues.

  Kane’s silence told her he knew exactly whom Xavier was talking about. His continued silence told her he wasn’t happy. But he released his grip just enough to let Xavier take a few panicked deep breaths.

  Xavier glanced warily back at the soul ripper. ‘Get it away from me.’

  ‘Why did Feinith tell you?’ Kane asked.

  ‘Because she wants me to help get it.’

  Kane released him and stood. He took a step back.

  Xavier rubbed his throat, his gaze warily locked on Kane. ‘Join us. Make this happen. Rule our army.’

  Caitlin took a few steps closer, shock coiling through her. ‘What are you saying? Are you insane?’

  But Xavier didn’t break his gaze from Kane to acknowledge her. ‘Did you hear me, Kane? Feinith has plans. Big plans. And she wants you to be a part of them. That’s why I needed to get you.’

  As Caitlin pulled level, Kane caught hold of her forearm, preventing her moving any closer. He didn’t look at her either, but he didn’t need to.

  ‘Own up to what you did to Arana,’ Kane said to him. ‘Publicly. Hand yourself in.’

  ‘What? I’m offering you a deal.’

  ‘I thought I made myself perfectly clear.’

  ‘Do you understand what we’re offering you?’

  ‘You have until dawn. If you don’t confess, I’ll send it back after you. Wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, it will find you. Only I won’t be around to stop it.’

  ‘You gave me your word.’

  ‘And I’ve called it off. But I never said I wouldn’t set it on you again.’ He released Caitlin. Holding out his arm, he used the dagger to slice down his forearm until droplets of his blood hit the cold, stone floor. Words slipped from his lips that Caitlin could barely hear nor understand. Something archaic, something lethal. ‘Confess by dawn or you will meet your fate my way.’

  ‘You need me on the outside.’

  Kane crouched down again and caught his jaw. ‘I don’t need anyone, Carter. Not anymore.’

  The words cut deeper than Caitlin was prepared for. The sealing of her pending fate. Kane hadn’t made a deal with Xavier – he’d just persuaded him to do exactly what he wanted him to do all along.

  Kane slammed Xavier’s head back against the bonnet with such force that it knocked him out cold.

  As Kane stood and turned to face her, she caught her breath.

  He was on the brink of the best of both worlds: he’d make Xavier confess to the crimes, bring down the TSCD with it and then send the soul ripper after him anyway.

  And he could only do that by keeping the soul ripper happy, by keeping the soul ripper alive.

  By betraying her.

  Kane checked his phone as he strolled back across to his car. He opened the passenger door, took out the book and placed it on the car bonnet.

  She knew what he was waiting for. Why he was looking at his phone. It was half past one. He was waiting for a broadcast.

  And then he smiled, albeit fleetingly.

  She could hear the voices as he stepped across to her and held out the phone for her to see.

  ‘Looks like your loved ones have come good,’ he said.

  Max and Rob were on the screen, both seated behind a table, microphones in front of them.

  ‘This is corruption of the highest order,’ one of the journalists said. ‘Confessing to this will bring the whole of the unit into disrepute. Why would you come forward like this and why now?’

  ‘This community deserves the truth,’ Max’s voice resounded through the phone. ‘It was only a matter of time. That time is now.’

  There was a barrage of questions and muffled voices before Kane turned his phone off. He returned it to his back pocket. ‘Are you ready?’

  Caitlin swallowed hard against her arid throat, her heart thudding. She looked across at the soul ripper, anger interweaving with her fear. Whatever the consequences after, she was going to get at least part of what she came for: the soul ripper was going to die that night. She was going to succeed in that if nothing else.

  ‘Do you think I’m stupid?’ she asked, her attention snapping back to Kane.

  Uncertainty glinted in his eyes. ‘Caitlin?’

  ‘You seriously think I’m going to give you my permission?’

  Kane’s eyes flared then narrowed. ‘What game are you playing?’

  ‘I’m not playing a game. But we both know what happens if I don’t let you put my soul back in.’

  Kane glowered at her. ‘Very clever, Caitlin,’ he said, admiration in his eyes despite his irritation.

  ‘Our agreement,’ the soul ripper said to Kane, stopping a couple of feet behind him.

  Caitlin circled around to the car to keep distance between her and the soul ripper, her eyes snatching warily between it and Kane.

  He held his hand up to the soul ripper before lowering it again. Stepping up to Caitlin, he caught hold of her arm, pulling her close. ‘You know what will happen.’

  ‘Not if you kill it,’ Caitlin whispered into his ear. ‘You want to live, you don’t have a choice. You’ve got what you wanted, or close enough. Now I want what I want. I want it gone. I want my parents free. And you are going to help me, Kane.’

  He exhaled curtly, his grip tightening on her arm. ‘Always the backup plan, Agent Parish.’

  ‘Did you really expect anything less? This is about my family, not my job.’

  ‘The agreement,’ the soul ripper said behind him.

  ‘It needs to be distracted,’ he whispered against her ear. ‘And right now, its full attention is on you. If you want it dead, you need me to put your soul back in.’

  Caitlin exhaled curtly. ‘Oh, just perfect, Kane. My soul goes back in and you won’t need to save me, will you?’

  ‘And what if I want to save you?’ he asked. ‘Has that possibility ever crossed your mind?’

  Caitlin pulled back slightly to stare at the sincerity in his eyes. But she wouldn’t let herself falter; she wouldn’t allow herself to be vulnerable. She needed to be in control of this. She needed to be in charge. Love him? Yes. Unequivocally. She knew that from the pain surging in her chest at the prospect of what might happen to him if this went wrong, if he called her bluff. But trust him? No. ‘And why would you want to do that, Kane, when everything is so close at hand? Your word to me doesn’t have to mean anything once I’m gone.’

  ‘I want her soul,’ the soul ripper said, Caitlin’s blood turning cold as fury jarred its motions.

  ‘Caitlin,’ Kane said, catching her jaw, ‘we had a deal.’

  ‘Then fulfil it.’

  He frowned. ‘You’ve been planning this all along, haven’t you?’ She saw the genuine despondency in his eyes. ‘Hemlock in gun handles is one thing, Caitlin, but this is insane.’

  ‘You said you can kill it. And nothing will drive you more to that than saving your own life, will it? Do what you will to me after, but you are going to do this.’

  The soul ripper stepped alongside them. ‘Soul back in!’ it commanded, its form shifting and changing, appearing to grow in height, in width, a cold darkness flaring in its eyes as they turned black.

  Caitlin glared at the soul ripper. ‘You’re not getting me,’ she snapped, pushing past Kane. ‘You hear me? Sorry, but go and feed your compulsion elsewhere.’

  Kane yanked her back to him, grabbing her upper arms, forcing her to look at him. ‘This cannot happen unless it is focused on you,’ he said. ‘You have to trust me.’

&
nbsp; ‘I don’t, Kane. I’m sorry.’ Her heart ached as she gazed into his eyes. ‘Especially not after what Xavier said. Kill it,’ she whispered. ‘Now.’

  ‘Vampire,’ the soul ripper warned.

  ‘If you don’t want to believe me, Caitlin, don’t, but at least believe in yourself and what your gut is telling you.’

  In the corner of her eye, she saw the soul ripper grow bigger in its impatient rage.

  ‘Last chance,’ Kane said.

  ‘No, Kane. It’s yours.’

  Kane hissed with frustration. ‘Trust me.’

  She wouldn’t look away. She refused to break from his glower. ‘Give me a reason to.’

  ‘I love you,’ he said.

  Caitlin’s heart skipped a beat. The room closed in. It didn’t matter that the soul ripper was less than three feet away, the dreamlike state his three simple words had yanked her into muted the fact that they were minutes away from it all being over. And though her intellect told her to deny it, her heart cried out to her to believe him as she gazed deep into his eyes: eyes that were intense with earnestness.

  ‘Please,’ he said. ‘I know everyone has let you down, but I won’t. Trust me and I will prove it.’

  He made it sound so simple: putting her life in his hands. Believing that he was capable of loving anyone. Believing that he was capable of loving her. Love her enough to let ultimate revenge slip through his fingers.

  She shook her head slightly in confusion and took a step back to forge some sanctuary from the intensity in his hypnotic navy eyes. She opened her mouth but nothing would come out.

  He couldn’t love her. Kane couldn’t love anyone anymore. But why did every instinct in her scream for her to believe to the contrary?

  ‘Caitlin,’ he said, the plea in his tone breaking her almost as much as the hope in his eyes. He closed the gap between them, reached to tenderly cup her face, the coolness of his hand reminding her too much of their intimacy – how she’d felt alive from the touch of his fingertips, how, from the moment they’d met, he’d given her hope.

  She broke away only to anxiously glance across at the soul ripper rising for attack. It was maybe seconds before it lost its temper. It would kill him. Rip him away from her just like it had everyone else she had loved. She glared at it before looking back at Kane.

  She couldn’t lose him. She couldn’t lose the only thing that had kept her living and breathing and fighting those past seven years.

  He didn’t deserve to die that night. She wouldn’t let him die. And if there were any truth, any truth at all, in the words he had uttered, she’d do whatever it took to hear him say it again.

  It was one hell of a test, but as she gazed back into the vampire’s eyes, she knew it was a chance she was going to have to take.

  With no time to dwell, she backed away from him to rest against the car. Fighting back the tears of frustration, of fear, she offered him a single nod.

  He placed the book on the bonnet beside her, opened the cover and gazed back into her eyes.

  As he recited the words, the rush was intense enough to throw her off balance. She clutched the bonnet of the car as the pages flickered. She closed her eyes from the pressure of the power surging back inside her, until she felt she’d been hit in the chest with a baseball bat.

  She gasped and bent forward, clutching her abdomen. She coughed and trembled, perspiration lining her palms. Her heart felt as though it was going to break from her chest. The floor felt off kilter.

  She snatched her gaze back up only to see Kane backing off and the soul ripper take the one easy stride towards her.

  Straightening up, she looked up into its eyes, into the darkness within. Darkness that throbbed like molten tar, thick and fathomless, putrid and angry – the eyes that had stared into her parents’ before it had stolen their life force.

  Glowing white tendrils were unleashed from the soul ripper’s abdomen within a split second, spiralling and thickening before piercing inside her.

  Caitlin fell back against the bonnet with the force as the tendrils speared her astral body, hooking inside her. Every nerve ending sparked and ignited in fiery pain. Thinner tendrils lanced her alongside them, weaving between them, entangling around her soul, squeezing as they secured themselves around the orb of light that was her soul.

  She snatched a glance across at Kane as he backed further away. If he was going to act, now was the time. The pressure inside her was building, scorching her from the inside as she felt the soul ripper’s power build.

  But Kane stayed away, a blur in the distance behind her glossy eyes.

  She needed him to act. She needed him to lunge at the soul ripper. But instead he kept a safe distance – motionless, watching, the dagger lax by his side.

  ‘Kane!’ she called. And she reached out to his blurred image that didn’t even flinch.

  She closed her eyes and felt the tears build as all her fears were confirmed.

  She’d made a mistake. A mistake that had cost her everything. An unforgivable mistake considering she knew better. Should have known better.

  And nothing hurt more than the pain of his betrayal, nor her stupidity at allowing it. Kane felt nothing – wanted nothing but to see every last one linked to his sister’s death punished.

  And that included her.

  As the tears trickled down her cheek, so her rage built. Her anger coiled and twisted inside, overwhelming the fear. She slammed her hand through the tendrils that bound her as she glared defiantly up into the soul ripper’s eyes. She wasn’t going out willingly. She wasn’t going without a fight. She tore at them, trying to yank each from her body. But as she tore them away, others slipped into their place, weaving tighter, hooks plunging deeper.

  Caitlin kept fighting, her body like a furnace, the irritation of the soul ripper escalating with hers. She jolted as a thick and powerful tendril pierced the centre of her soul. She cried out, feeling the rip as it started to tear her astral body from within her, her whole body shivering and aching.

  She wasn’t going to let it take her. She wasn’t going to let it win. She wasn’t going to let it end like this. She slammed her hand up to the soul ripper’s throat and glared into its eyes

  She felt it freeze.

  Her first thought was that Kane had finally come to rescue her.

  But something else had happened.

  The soul ripper’s eyes flared. It jolted, its jagged toothed mouth gaping down on her.

  It yelled piercingly, the screams nearly bursting Caitlin’s eardrums. She let it go to clamp her hands over her ears as the soul ripper retracted, its hands flaying, its whole body shuddering as if on fast-forward.

  And it ignited into a blinding white glow.

  She felt the flurry of wind as the astral bodies were sucked back into the bodies on the floor, the room surging with energy.

  Then there was silence.

  And it was gone.

  Only a blackened singe remained on the concrete to show where it had been stood.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Caitlin slid off the bonnet and stared down at the blackened concrete, not daring to take her attention off it as she staggered away.

  She clutched her chest and looked up to see Kane approaching, the dagger still in his hand.

  ‘What happened?’ She stumbled backwards, still trembling from shock as she glanced around rapidly. ‘Why am I still here? Why am I still alive?’

  He glanced down at the scorch mark. ‘It looks to me like you just killed your first soul ripper, Caitlin Parish.’

  She stared back down at the concrete then back at Kane. ‘Killed it? It’s gone?’

  ‘I’d say that’s a definite,’ he said, giving her a hint of a smile.

  As he stepped up to her she took a wary step back. ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘You don’t get that the shadow reader’s soul is impossible to remove without getting to the heart first? I thought we’d just spent the last three days establishing that.’

 
; She stood perfectly still. Her whole body felt numb. ‘I killed it?’

  ‘That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? That’s what you really wanted. You asked me to kill it for you, but I knew you wouldn’t get the same satisfaction as being responsible for making the little fucker explode yourself.’

  She stared at him in disbelief.

  ‘You had me worried for a moment though,’ he said. ‘All that not letting me put your soul back in. You nearly screwed me over, you know that?’

  ‘I killed it,’ she said again, still trying to let the truth sink in. ‘But that means I could have killed it all along.’

  ‘Of course. Those lores surrounding that precious soul of yours apply to any species, Caitlin. Thing is, your soul was already out when it arrived so it wasn’t going to know what you were.’ He smiled. ‘But when it pierced your soul it sure did. By then it was too late. It was trying to get back out of you, Caitlin. You gave it one hell of a struggle. Your anger wasn’t letting it go.’

  She frowned. ‘You knew all this. You knew before now.’

  His silence said it all.

  She stared at him in horror. ‘You never intended to do anything, did you?’

  ‘I’d have stepped in if I had to, but you seemed to be doing just fine on your own.’

  Caitlin swung her fist back before punching him across the jaw. ‘You bastard!’

  He rubbed where she hit, but looked far from disconcerted. ‘I guess I deserved that one too.’

  She stabbed her finger towards him. ‘I could have done this on my own all along! I didn’t need you – you needed me!’

  ‘You got this far because I let you get this far. Don’t forget that. You got what you wanted. You killed the soul ripper.’

  She looked down at the dagger then anxiously back at him.

  He exhaled curtly. ‘What? You think I intend to use this?’

  He closed the gap between them, pressed the flat of the blade against the underside of her chin. ‘Open your eyes, Caitlin.’ He studied her for what felt like a lifetime before he lowered the blade and flipped the dagger in his hand as he stepped past her.

  She turned to face him as he collected the book off the car bonnet. ‘So you’re letting me go?’