Midnight Dawn

by Jocelyn Adams

He probably could, and he’d suffer for the rest of eternity. It was too cruel for words, and I felt helpless for him.

  “I will find a way to destroy you,” Baku whispered inside my head, “but first I will destroy all of them.”

  Great, he could talk to me. That was going to get old fast. “Give it your best shot, asshole.” I thought back at him. “Us plaid-loving redneck girls can be just as stubborn as dead dragon mantises. You finally lost, and I don’t feel like playing anymore. Have a little dignity, and accept that it’s over.”

  Asher’s arms closed around me again, the rest of him gone hard as stone. Maybe he’d somehow heard Baku, or maybe something in my body had given away my sudden stress.

  “Can you please take my dad for a walk down to the dock?” I asked Sophia. “He could use a break, and fishing always loosens his knots.”

  My best friend in the world glanced at Asher, and back at me. “Yeah, we’ll be back in a bit,” she said, wiping the worry from her face with one of her bright smiles. “Come on, Mr. Beckett. How about you giving me that fishing lesson you promised?”

  At first Dad’s defiant posture suggested he had no intention of letting me out of his sight for the next decade, but after staring at us for a moment, he nodded. “Sure thing, Sophia.” To me, he said, “I’ll be right outside, Addy.”

  “I know. It’s all right, Dad.” For once I wished I was better at acting.

  Once we were alone, Asher turned me gently and tilted my face up to his, keeping the blanket wrapped around us. “Tell me how bad it is. Nothing but truth between us now, remember?”

  “He’s not a happy wraith, let’s just leave it at that. It’s done.” I reached up and swept my thumb over his lip. “We’re together, and we’re alive. I wasn’t sure we’d have either one of those before we got up this morning.”

  “You don’t have to carry this alone. You need to tell me if it gets bad,” he said, stroking soothing circles on my back. “What do we do now?”

  “We finish assembling the Machine so they can help you maintain the shield, and we go on. We stay strong for the sentinels outside who are probably still freaked out, because that’s what they need us to be.” I stretched up and kissed him lightly, holding his chin afterward so he’d keep looking at me. “Whatever happens to me, you have to hold the veil. Hold it like it’s me and I’m scared and need your arms around me. Promise me, Asher.”

  He crimped his eyes shut, sweeping my hair over my ear. “I promise…until I find another way to contain him that doesn’t destroy you. And I will. I promise you that, too, and you know I’m a man who gets what he wants.”

  “Boy, do I know that.” I snuggled into him again, slipping my hand under his shirt to find my peaceful place, and he hummed a haunting melody that filled me with calm.

  Eventually, I’d have to leave his arms and face my new reality with Baku as my backseat driver, along with the possibility that I’d eventually wander south of crazy. Until then, I intended to enjoy every second with my hot professor.

  …

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  Glossary

  Conduit: A guardian who can share power with another. One theory is that there is only one perfect conduit for each guardian in the Mortal Machine.

  Founder: Energy beings from another time and reality who created Earth along with several other populated planets, their creatures, and even the cultures for some, as a means of studying evolution. Only Izan remains in Earth’s reality, while the rest of his people have long since left.

  Mortal Machine: A secret society of demi-immortal humans responsible for keeping an alternate reality’s dead from crossing through the veil to Earth, and destroying the ones that do make it through.

  Known Mortal Machine Roles:

  Architect: The leader of the Mortal Machine, identifiable by her sky-blue eyes with a star-shaped violet corona. Always female, the Architect is the keeper of laws and knowledge, and the chief designer responsible for assembling the Machine and caring for its guardians. Her power is a double-edged sword, capable of opening a permanent doorway between Earth and the wraiths’ frozen hell, and granting the dead life if they should ever pass through her.

  Colonel: This position of authority was once believed to be the leader of the Machine for decades due to a traitor’s lies. This is no longer a true position in the Machine.

  Guardian: A term used to describe members of the Mortal Machine, forgetting rank and position.

  Medic: This sentinel has the ability to heal using his Machine energy.

  Outfitter: This guardian is responsible for preparing the sentinels for the hunt, from designing and creating clothing and accessories to outfitting them with weapons and technology.

  Sentinels: Wraith hunters, identified by their bright blue eyes with a star-shaped jade-green corona. The brighter the eyes, the closer the sentinel is to his/her full Machine potential.

  Shepherd: Always male, the Shepherd is the Architect’s conduit. He’s the recruiter for the Machine, able to detect when a human is sensitive to the dead. He can also manipulate the Shift like no other, and speak mind-to-mind to the other guardians.

  Soldier: Support staff in the Machine, who provides services to the sentinels, such as cleaning up after a wraith hunt, gathering intel, or providing equipment and clothing for a hunt.

  Shift: Layers of false reality that surround the Earth to hide it from the wraiths beyond the veil. Although it hasn’t worked well as a shield, it also serves as a mode of transportation for the guardians to travel anywhere in the world in seconds with a thought.

  Storm: The energy inside a guardian she/he can use to detect and destroy the dead, and to deploy his/her special abilities.

  Veil: The thin energy fabric created by the founders to separate one true reality from another.

  Wraith: The soul of a living creature that was ripped out of the body unnaturally, like in an extinction-level explosion, or by a sentinel of the Mortal Machine. The insect-like wraiths that the Mortal Machine sentinels battle aim to possess humans, consume their souls, and be reborn in corporeal form in Earth’s reality.

  Acknowledgments

  This book was the hardest one I’ve ever written by a good hundred miles. Not only is the Mortal Machine world complicated by multiple realities and a bunch of unique rules and talents, but I also had to deal with memory loss in my main character, which made the delivery of backstory interesting to say the least.

  Add in a tight deadline, and…I really do apologize to my two beta readers for making them suffer through the first draft, which was a total train wreck from beginning to end. Love you guys!

  To Amaleen Ison, who can see so much that I can’t, who can feel deeper than my heart can reach, and who can slap me with logic I hadn’t even considered, you saved me from my own creative chaos.

  To Jennifer M. Eaton, your mad love for all things that go boom really saved my bacon for the ending that came to be after the pathetic kumbaya version that originally fell out of my head. You gave me two paragraphs of your imagination, and from that, what my blind brain couldn’t grasp before exploded into an epic battle. You really should write some screenplays for Spielberg or Jackson. Totally.

  To Tracy Montoya, every time we work together, no matter how tight the deadline or what face-palm moment I’ve written into the story, you teach me, encourage me, and make me dream bigger than I ever have before. Thank you not only for making Addison and Asher shine on the page, but for making me feel like I can do just about anything I can imagine. Your many talents go beyond measure, and I appreciate everything you do for me and my writing.

  To my family, thank you for letting me pace and mutter and rant with frustration while I wrote this book, and for continuing to lov
e me even though I spent more time with my laptop than you in the last month.

  And last but not least, to all of the amazing folks at Entangled Publishing, thanks for putting the finishing touches on Midnight Dawn and for your ongoing support. You’re all made of awesome.

  About the Author

  Jocelyn Adams lives in the Muskoka region of Ontario with her high school sweetheart and young daughter. She writes dark, romantic fantasy and is a wife, mother, blogger, carbaholic, and former IT geek. Find her online at www.joceadams.com.

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