“He ever talk?” I finally asked.
“He should be by now,” she said. “My sister’s kid talked a blue streak before he was a year old. This one’s nearly two, but he doesn’t so much as cry.” She cocked her head up at me. “Do you think there’s something wrong with him?”
What did I know about children? I shrugged.
“So,” she said, starting to lace the strips over my left foot. “You didn’t say whether you still had any.”
I couldn’t help myself. “Have any what?”
Her hands paused.
I had the distinct feeling she was staring at me through the darkness and could still see every thought cross my face. Even though I hadn’t been able to see her clearly because she had her back to the cage lights, I imagined her with blonde curls and blue eyes to match her son’s.
“Have any what?” I asked again.
“Light,” she hissed as though it was a secret. She leaned in close. “How much do you have left in your lumen? You don’t look like you’re going dark. Are you hiding it?”
I swallowed. I wasn’t sure what the appropriate response would be.
“Because if you have some,” she said. “If it’s more than me, I mean, I’d be really grateful if you could look after Uriel.”
There it was. At least now I knew the reason for the friendliness. I tried to pull my foot away, but she tightened her grip. I glared at her.
“I’m already looking for someone,” I said. “I don’t have time to take along a kid.”
“I won’t be able to soon,” she said, lifting her wrist so I could see how pale her light had become. “It’s weaker now,” she said, her voice dropping. “The lower it gets, the faster it depletes, and things cost so much.”
I felt her fingers grip my ankle and twist slightly.
“I spent too much on you, I’m afraid.” She ran a finger up my instep, not in a sexual way but in a manner that made me realize she was testing for more injuries. “He’ll have no one when I go dark.”
Next thing I knew, her hand was gone from my ankle. She slipped over onto my mattress, pressing in close. Her knees knocked against mine. I felt her breath in my ear as she whispered the next words.
“He has plenty,” she said. “If you’re willing to take him. It’s strange he has so much, really. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
I thought of the men in the alley stealing that homeless man’s lumen energy. For some stupid reason, I imagined myself lying there abandoned.
“How do you know I won’t steal what he has and leave him used up somewhere in a back alley?” I said it with a tad more venom than I meant to.
She pulled away and cocked her head. “You don’t look like everyone else,” she said and reached out to touch the tips of my hair. There was a gentle tug as she stroked her thumb over the last inch of it. “Is that red? I’ve never seen red hair.”
At that, she pulled away and reached for the boy. She lifted Uriel onto her lap, then pulled his coat open the merest of inches. Enough light came from beneath it that it lit her entire face. She was looking at her son with so much compassion it tightened my throat. I knew she could easily do to the boy what I’d just threatened, but she was willing to go dark rather than use any of his.
I opened my mouth to ask her why. Why not just take a little of his, rather than die and leave him with a stranger?
But before I could ask, gunshots rang out, and people began to scream.
Chapter 6
My reflexes shot me to my feet. Whatever pain I should be feeling in my soles, adrenaline buffered out. Chaos had erupted in the few seconds it took for me to bolt to a stand, but already I could see a swarm of filthy men panning across the room, guns pointed with purpose and making people quail away from them.
The lumen volunteers in the cages frantically tried and failed to get their doors unlocked so they could free themselves and flee before the men could reach them. I couldn’t hear what the invaders were saying to each other or to the pitiful homeless who got in their way, but the response from the derelicts lying about on air mattresses or sitting cross-legged on the shelter floor certainly seemed like complete terror as they jumped to their feet and scuttled in all directions toward the shadows.
“We’re screwed now,” Fran said from her mattress. I felt her shuffling around, no doubt grabbing the boy close to her. Without another word, she scooted backward on her way to the curtain that surrounded the toilet hole. I reached down and fished for her collar until I felt the tatty material against my fingers.
I yanked her backward when I got hold of it.
“What do you mean screwed?” I demanded. The boy was squirming beneath her arm, and his foot knocked me in the shin.
In the dim light, I could just make out the way she jerked her chin toward the men now swarming throughout the shelter.
“Whatever lumen you have left,” she rasped out, “you better hope it’s not worth anything.”
I scanned the room with squinted eyes. Four of the pack went straight for the volunteer cages. Whatever they said to the men inside had the volunteers scrabbling to open the door for them. The first one who managed it got spun around with a knife placed to his throat.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Mentally, I had already started counting. Three invaders at the door, four at the cages. I could make out one man herding Doug and the counter girl into a corner where they all but disappeared as the shadows swallowed them. The rest of the invaders swept out into the crowds.
Twelve men, I thought. Too many for me to manage, even with magic. And what would interfering do, except keep me from finding the child I’d been sent to recover? Maybe it would be best to find a back door somewhere and slip out quietly. Whatever this drama was, it had nothing to do with me or my quest. And as much as I wanted to help, there were more lives than just the ones in this shelter that were counting on me.
“Brigands,” Fran said, tugging at my arm before I could let her go. “They’ll use us all up or sell us. Now let us go. Please.”
I looked down at her, my brain chewing over all the choices. I was aware of the fingers of my free hand tapping against my thigh. She was clutching at the boy in desperation. As the volunteers left their cages, leaving their lumens to swim over the complex, someone’s light rested on her as it swept by and illuminated her fully for the first time.
She did indeed have blonde curls as I’d thought. I imagined her complexion at some point had been like creamy butter, but the pallor beneath the flesh was now grey and wasting. Black smudges circled her eyes, and the veins beneath her temple looked like pulsing ribbons of tar.
A quick flash of the grim ones from the beach shot through my mind. Dark. She was going dark, and would soon be one of the consumed. The boy on the other hand, looked fresh. Except for the telltale signs of early malnutrition, he seemed healthy.
I fished about in my pocket for the bit of plastic I’d retrieved from the counter when I’d accepted the bowl of rotten soup. For the first time, I realized it had been foolish to come to the human realm with nothing but my magic. I should have packed a weapon. A knife, a sword, a rock. Anything. Magic in this situation would be like putting a butchered lamb in front of a drooling wolf.
I groaned as I succumbed to a moment of weakness, one that would no doubt get me killed.
“Get behind the curtain,” I hissed at Fran. “And keep quiet.”
With a sigh and the last thought that it was foolish to get involved, I spun around to face the room and caught sight of an additional man striding through the crowds. Even in the dim light of the volunteers’ lumens, I could tell he was tall and broad-shouldered. His dark hair was pulled behind his head in a man bun, and he had a hard line to his jaw that went strangely soft as he watched the counter girl stumble into the light and break into tears.
Thirteen brigands, then, not twelve. Something niggled at the back of my mind as I watched this new man swagger through the throng.
Most of t
he derelicts and homeless had already been marshaled into small groups. I watched in horrified curiosity as some of the brigands pressed their personal lumen discs against those the homeless wore. Each time the transfer of power happened, it was mesmerizing.
I clenched the plastic fork as I watched each derelict collapse and go still. The handle flicked against my thigh back and forth as I considered the ruthlessness that confronted me. They were killing these people. Stealing the rest of their light and supplying their own discs with it. I thought of the boy, and the tines of the fork bit into my palm.
I had to get out of there. This was none of my business.
“Get rid of the empties,” said the tall man as he wove his way through. “Anyone with a quarter power left is mine and goes to the back of the room.”
The remaining brigands went to work separating and herding. I inched backward toward the curtain. As I moved, the tall man caught sight of me. He cocked his head when his gaze snared mine, and then a slow smile spread across his face.
“You,” he said, striding at me with dogged purpose.
That was when realization struck me. This was the man from the beach and the alleyway. Ari, I reminded myself. That was his name. I simultaneously wanted to fly at him and back away into the area behind the curtain to wait out the invasion.
I waited instead, paralyzed by my own indecision as he advanced through the crowd toward me.
“Bad timing, little one,” he said as he drew near.
“It’s Everly,” I blurted before I could stop myself from engaging. “Little” was a term for someone who was powerless. I was not. I might be five foot nothing and skinny enough that the witches on the isle constantly misjudged my strength as well as my skill, but I had everything I needed to snuff out his cocky stride as well as his entire horde of brigands.
I was close enough to the curtain by then to clutch at it behind me. The material felt gritty in my fingers. No telling what kinds of soil was embedded in the cloth. I let it go and wiped my hands on the backs of my thighs.
“Well, Everly,” he said. “You have the worst luck in the world.”
I glared at him from beneath lowered lashes as I pointed to the fallen homeless he’d left behind him, already slumping and deadly still in the wake of his comrades’ assault.
“Apparently, theirs is worse.” I meant it as an accusation, and I could see by the way he straightened defensively that he took it that way.
He twisted to look over his shoulder. “What? Them? They were already gone. Once you get to that point, there’s no coming back. The light price is kinder.”
“Kinder than what?” I asked, not sure I truly wanted to hear the answer. I recalled the grim ones from the beach and knew instinctively that they’d been very human once. It struck me that he had known those grim ones were out there, waiting for an opportunity to attack me. And he’d left me there. Stolen my boots, even.
My fingers waggled against my thigh as I tried to decide how I could slip out now that I’d drawn attention to myself. I crouched and reached for my boots, sliding them over top of the bandages. Now I had them back, I’d be damned if he’d steal them from me again.
A sly smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. He knew what I was doing. I moved backward, ever closer to the curtain, thinking to slip into the shadows as the lumen beams left me. I just had to wait for my chance. Pull Fran and the boy out from beneath the material and find a side door. If I were lucky, we could be outside before anyone noticed we were gone. I could dump them somewhere handy, and my conscience would be clear enough to push on.
Luckily enough, Ari’s gaze slid from mine. I was already turning to flick back the curtain and grab for Fran’s elbow when he addressed the room and stopped me in my tracks.
“Listen up,” he hissed at those around him. “I’ve secured an upscale home in the middle of the city. They need light. They’re willing to offer room and board to those willing to work.”
The entirely nonchalant phrasing cut into the quick of my conscience. I whirled around in his general direction, the curtain still in my hand.
“Slavery, you mean,” I bit out.
He levelled his gaze on me, his arms crossing over each other against his chest. I groaned inwardly at my spiteful stupidity. His biceps bulged and twitched impatiently as he took me in.
“Would you prefer Gus’s choice? He knows a guy with a house in need of a few playthings.” He ran his eye from my head to my heel as though he were considering my suitability.
I squared my shoulders and pulled my spine straight as he chuckled.
“Don’t worry, little…Everly,” he said between appraising looks. “You wouldn’t do. That red hair. Too leggy.” He tossed his gaze toward where Gus was gathering up a few younger women and tying them together with cable ties. “But Gus has some terrible addictions to pay for, and he has no problem abducting a few pretty light baubles to pay for them. It’s him or me, little one. Best make your choice quick.”
“I told you, it’s Everly.”
He merely cocked his eyebrow at my tone, but his gaze slid sideways to where Gus was funneling forward.
“Choose now,” he said in a hoarse voice.
Gus was already advancing toward me. The look on his face told me he recognized me and was pretty damn happy to see me standing there after our encounter at the docks. The vindictive line to his brow made me swallow hard. My spiteful nature had got the better of me once again.
It would be harder to get out, sure, but it wasn’t impossible.
“I choose to leave,” I said without taking my eyes off the swaggering hulk of shadow coming toward me.
“That wasn’t an option.” Ari gripped a teenager whose lumen was cracked but glowing a faint yellow by the elbow. “Get over there before Gus sees you,” he said to her, then shoved her toward a group of cowering women and a few brooding youths. “Keep quiet.”
By that time, Gus had already swallowed up several feet of floor with his stride and was running his hand along his throat as he watched for my reaction to seeing him. He wanted me to know he recognized me. He wanted me to be afraid. I could just make out the black smudges of bruising along his larynx in the light he gave off from his lumen. He was bare chested again. The muscles beneath his skin looked rock hard and unyielding. He recognized me, all right, and his mouth worked into a snarl as he plodded forward.
“Boots, girl,” he croaked out with all the venom of a cobra’s spit.
He tried to clear his throat and winced. The look he shot me then was outright rage. I knew he was remembering the punch I’d delivered to his throat just hours before.
He stomped closer, and I edged into the curtain to avoid him. I felt a tiny hand grasp my ankle from beneath it and heard a smothered giggle coming from the vicinity of my feet.
I froze as the men looked in the direction of the material that offered the toilet some small bit of privacy.
It was Ari who moved first, swooping in even as I lunged sideways to block him with a clumsy back-leg kick. The posterior of my heel landed against his shoulder, but it was a grazing contact because I was off center, and he ended up taking my blow with a casual shrug.
I was still finding my feet when he reached beneath the curtain for that little hand I knew was there. I jumped to its defence without thinking and felt a jolt of pain tear down from my scalp to my jawline.
One moment of weakness, and I’d let that bastard Gus grab me by the hair. I was chewing over my fury when Ari pulled the boy out from behind the material.
I twisted in Gus’s grip, trying not to feel the pain searing its way down, fully intending to ram the butt of my hand into his nose. He yanked hard so that my neck arched and the punch fell pitifully short. He was quick for a large man. I’d underestimated him. I wouldn’t do it again.
Fran clawed her way out from behind the drapes. She tried to find her feet but stumbled and ended up yanking on the curtain to keep from falling.
“Give him back,” she begged. “Plea
se. He’s just a boy.”
As she reached for Uriel, a clump lodged in my throat. I considered stomping on Gus’s heel, but I was too far away, leaning against him with just my shoulders and in danger of losing my footing as he pulled harder. My head butted against his ribcage, and he twisted to keep me immobile through my struggles. It was through a blur of pained tears that I watched Fran inching toward Ari.
Curses ran through my head at my stupidity. I shouldn’t have gotten involved. I knew I shouldn’t have, and now here I was at the mercy of this brawling bastard.
“Please,” Fran said. “Don’t take him. Take me. Take my lumen,” she said, pulling at her forearm where the lumen was doing its best to give off its meager light. “It’s not much, but you can have it. For him. Take it.”
She finally managed to rip it from her arm. It dangled just inches from Ari’s chest.
“Here,” she persisted. “Take it.”
Gus made a lunge for the lumen before Ari could take it, and I yelped as some of my hair tore free of my scalp. When I got free, I was going to stuff all the hair he pulled from my head into his mouth and choke him with it.
“We’ll take them both,” Gus said.
Those spidery fingers of his closed around the lumen, and with a satisfied grunt, he pocketed it. I tried to land a rabbit punch into his belly, but he tugged my hair again. I caught my breath at the pain.
“Give me the boy, Ari,” he said. “Might be I know a man who lost one of his eyes and is in need of another. Blue like this bastard’s.” He pointed with his elbow at Uriel, and more hair tore free from my scalp. “They should fetch a good bit of lumen if I bargain well.” He laughed after he said it, as though he found the notion of bargaining humorous under the circumstances.
I gritted my teeth at his words, and my stomach churned.
Be patient, Everly. Wait for the right time. It will come.
Unless it didn’t. Unless this ended the way my standoff with the kraken had.
But this wasn’t a kraken. This was an idiotic bumbling troll. Eventually, he would do something stupid. Then I’d get free, and he’d be in a mess of pain.
Coven Keepers (Dark Fae Hollows Book 10) Page 6