“You’re not going to apologize?”
“You must end the deception, Ruby.” He coughed, blood dribbling down his chin. “A better man than me will know what to do.”
“Roark?”
“I am glad Colton did not disappoint me.” His eye closed. “He will end the war. But only with your guidance.”
I didn’t need to pull the trigger.
Solomon Marshall let out a final ragged breath, and then his body went slack. A slight ripple coursed through the room, washing over the world.
Everything was over, and the weight of responsibility settled down upon me.
45
The FBI’s backup did eventually arrive, but I never got to see whether Roark survived. I’d just have to trust my vision. Then again, it being the first one I’d really pulled off successfully, I didn’t really know what to think. While the FBI was eager to announce the killing of the necromancer to the world—and claim credit—they were less interested in giving me details on Roark’s condition.
I did learn, however, that Eden Marshall had been found a few blocks away. Naked, covered in dirt, and somewhat dehydrated—but very much alive. Whatever curse her brother had cast upon her to keep her safe had been broken with his death. I eagerly awaited her memoirs or new fashion line. Whatever it was that media darlings did after a long hiatus.
I doubted MagiTekk would kill her. One Marshall dead was a random act of violence. Two? That was a pattern.
Things would return to status quo. Everyone could breathe easy, order restored. Everything was as it should’ve been—with me back in jail.
But I knew now that this new world was just an illusion. MagiTekk had wormed its way into every part of the government—the internment camps started in Texas, then spread, and someone saw an opportunity worth exploiting. All those creatures could be tested and researched. Data gleaned, products made. Fear mongered.
You make money off war, not peace—the hope of peace. Guns, bullets, surveillance, chips, all of it generated cash. The deception was that MagiTekk was keeping the world safe, when really they were Mafia dons offering protection against themselves. Reaching their hand in one pocket and threatening to slit your throat with the other.
And I’d killed the only man willing to fight the system.
I paced around my solitary cell, the familiar cotton sweatsuit scratching against my skin. If I’d expected a hero’s welcome, then this was a severe disappointment. Although I’d been granted the luxury of my own living space, primarily so that I couldn’t spread dissent amongst the prisoners.
Or maybe so they could study me and continue relaying all the details about my vitals and sleep habits back to MagiTekk.
I sat down on the bed, staring at the wall.
There was a knock at the door.
“I’m not hungry.”
It swung open anyway.
A tall, muscular man stepped inside, his blue eyes looking slightly less sorrowful. A plain brown bag swayed in his hand. He scratched his clean-shaven cheeks, looking about ten years younger. A youthful smile tugged at the corner of his lips. His smooth movements had a slight hitch to them. Like he’d just been shot and almost died.
“Modern medicine,” Colton Roark said, by way of explanation. He lifted up his shirt to display a rippling silver plate that moved and tensed like skin. It melded perfectly with the rest of his obliques, but reflected the light sharply. “They say they can make it blend in. But I kind of like it.”
I blinked like I was seeing a ghost.
Roark leaned on the wall, his boot pressed against the white wall. “I’d give you a big thanks, but—”
“But?”
“I don’t think we have much time,” he said, offering me his hand. I brushed off the display of chivalry and stood on my own.
“Meaning?”
“Alice looped the camera and deleted all your records,” Roark said. “Drop your pants.”
“A little forward.”
“Don’t worry, I’m harmless.” There was that charm. I almost found myself embarrassed as I untied the drawstring. “Bend over.”
“This better not be an—ow.” I spun around, tripping on my pants. “What the hell was that?”
“They tag all the supernatural creatures.” Roark held up a little syringe, which instead of a needle, had a claw-like apparatus at the end. In the clear plastic, there was a little circuit board. “Don’t tell me you forgot.”
I’d been through the deactivation dog-and-pony show more than twenty times. But yeah, after a while, I’d forgotten that the camp had tagged me like some sort of pet.
Roark tossed me the bag. I felt the familiar outline of my clothes.
I got dressed and rubbed my sore thigh. “A little heads-up would’ve been nice.”
“Oh, I guess I should’ve just called on the phone and asked for Ruby Callaway.” He smiled, blue eyes reflecting the room’s dim light. “Would’ve been kind of hard, since they don’t even know your name.”
He pushed the door open and held it for me.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because we’re partners,” Roark said, quickly catching up despite his minor limp.
“You could lose your job.”
“And you could use a job.”
“Doing what?” I followed him into the hallway, dropping my gaze as a man in a lab coat approached. The man gave us a glance but quickly turned away when Roark displayed his FBI credentials.
With the dampeners in effect, I could barely make out the wisps circling around Roark. But from his expression, I could see that he was serious.
“Working for the FBI.” We passed through a series of essence detectors. None of them beeped or sounded an alarm. “Well, kind of.”
Alice Conway was good. But not good enough to circumvent the Supernatural Containment & Suppression Act. Creatures of essence couldn’t hold law enforcement jobs—and every damn facility in the country would have an essence scanner right at the front.
She might’ve disabled that one from afar. But she couldn’t do that every time. Plus, they might have lost my file, but the guys at the FBI would probably recognize the Crimson Angel.
“Define kind of.”
“You’re good at keeping in the shadows.”
“Pass.”
“I’ll use my whole CI budget,” Roark said, turning to gauge my reaction. “Good benefits.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I’m talking about the hidden ones.” We walked straight by the intake guard at the front, out the doors. Staring out at the massive camp, the cabins that had been my home for years, I realized I was sick of this life. “Like working with me.”
“And here I thought you were modest.”
“Everyone gets things wrong occasionally,” he said with a quick wink.
I considered his offer—and the alternative.
Always running.
Never standing to fight.
“You want to take on MagiTekk,” I said. Hell, he hadn’t even heard half of what Marshall had told me, and he still wanted to charge ahead.
Solomon Marshall might’ve been insane, but apparently he was a good judge of character.
Maybe Roark would win this war after all.
Roark shot me a serious grin. “What better way to blow it up than from the inside?”
“I don’t know,” I said as we walked to his cruiser. “Marshall couldn’t stop them even from within a time loop.”
“But he didn’t have Lightning Blade on his side.” Roark winked at me. “And whatever you bring to the table, of course.”
“I’m the only reason you’re alive,” I said hotly. “Why did you choose that call sign, anyway?”
He held his easy smile. But it still held a darkness. “It was Sam’s. Now it’s mine.”
Something else remained unsaid. I didn’t push it as we reached the car, sun glinting overhead.
“I bring a lot more to the table than you,” I said.
“But did y
ou break out of a high-security government facility?”
“I killed a necromancer twice.”
“Technically he killed himself the first time,” Roark said, settling into the leather seat. The window rolled down and he leaned over. “Last chance.”
“You’ll really let me just leave?”
His expression barely changed, but I could tell the thought pained him. “It’s your choice.” His head nodded toward the trunk. “Benefits, though.”
The trunk hissed open.
I found the Realmpiece and my shotgun inside.
I said, “What happened to Stevens?”
“Oh, I think he’s fitting in nicely at his new job. Cleaning toilets suits a man of his stature, right?”
I smiled.
Maybe this could work.
Maybe we could win. Him working in the light, me in the shade. Pooling our resources and minds together to balance everything, like yin and yang. After all, we’d stopped a deranged necromancer. Alone, neither of us stood a chance. The world would consume us. But together…
I racked the slide and walked to the car.
As I slid into the leather seat, Roark gave me a nod, reaching into his belt loop.
The blade glowed with electric energy.
Without a word, he placed the hilt in my hand. This was what had gone unsaid minutes before. Roark, unsure whether he could let things go. Let me in.
I stared at the sizzling edge, sensing the electric pulse.
“I can’t take this,” I said.
“Partners.”
“You know the last guy who gave me a weapon died.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“Does this mean I’m Lightning Blade now?” I asked with a wry grin.
“Come up with your own name.”
“I already did,” I said.
“Ruby’s not your real name?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” I said, raising my eyebrow suggestively.
Roark answered with a silent smile and turned on the car.
“You know, all I really wanted was my shit back,” I said as the car rolled forward, looking out the window at the place I’d called home for the last twenty years. But really, I didn’t want Roark to know I was a little touched by his gesture. I blinked hard to make sure I didn’t look like a sentimental sap. “And an apartment.”
“Sure.”
But I think what I’d wanted, all those years, was something else.
For someone to understand and give me a cause worth fighting for again.
As the cruiser whipped through the gates, toward freedom, I looked back at the gray concrete compound, a calm coming over me.
The time loop was over.
My heart thumped in my chest as we sped through the familiar slum, mud spitting off the tires.
Two centuries was a long time.
It was good to finally be free.
END OF BOOK 1
Shadow Flare
The Ruby Callaway Trilogy (Book 2)
Book 1 Recap
This is a brief recap of Lightning Blade (Book 1).
Obviously, spoilers await, so if you haven’t read Book 1 yet, go do that first.
June 2039. Supernatural bounty hunter Ruby Callaway has spent the last twenty-one years in the Tempe Supernatural Internment Camp after being set up and captured by law enforcement—and MagiTekk, a multinational weapons and defense conglomerate. Ruby is a 200+ year old Realmfarer—an ultra-rare creature that can’t cast spells, but is capable of “cold reading” people and situations using her magical intuition. She’s endured tests as the authorities have tried unsuccessfully to determine who and what she is.
But she’s especially pissed at them killing her mentor, Pearl. Over the past two decades, she’s managed to get revenge on three of the people who set her up—and Lightning Blade begins after she kills the fourth.
This act brings her to the attention of Special Agent Colton Roark, an up-and-coming young FBI agent who needs help capturing a necromancer serial killer. This necromancer is murdering and reanimating public officials on live TV and has killed seven times, all on the same date. Today marks the eighth anniversary. While the FBI doesn’t know who or what Ruby is, her file is impressive enough to suggest she could be useful. In exchange for bringing the necromancer in, Ruby will be granted her freedom.
Released after two decades, Ruby finds herself faced with a new world. After centuries spent in hiding, the supernatural was finally revealed in 2017. Mortals welcomed the news with extreme paranoia. Supernatural creatures are treated as third class citizens, barred from holding jobs in law enforcement—and requiring myriads of paperwork and vaccines for sundry positions elsewhere. Those who aren’t confined to internment camps live in a slum outside Phoenix known as the Mud Belt. Others dwell in the radioactive wreckage of the Fallout Zone, which is essentially a lawless prison inside Phoenix. The city itself has turned into a hologram-laden metropolis with buildings over a mile tall.
The necromancer lures Roark to a field and kills him for the twenty-third time—but is intrigued by Ruby’s presence, which is new. After being killed, she wakes up back in the camp at midnight, soon discovering that the world is in an endlessly resetting time loop—one that only she and the necromancer can see.
Ruby and Colton pursue the necromancer through the loop. Through its many permutations, Ruby eventually gains his trust as a partner and explains what’s going on. They discover that the killer was once Solomon Marshall—the CEO of a rival firm called LC2. Just before LC2 was set to roll out a product that would cut into MagiTekk’s profits, Marshall was assassinated.
Resurrected from the Underworld, he vowed revenge on his corrupt competitor—and the man who pulled the trigger: Roark’s father—and MagiTekk’s Chief of Security—Malcolm Roark. Marshall even killed Roark’s older brother, sending his energy-charged blade and an old photograph to Roark with the inscription I’ll be watching you, Colton. Don’t disappoint me. Roark joined the FBI the same day.
As they close in on Marshall, dying and rebooting the time loop, Ruby and Roark discover that MagiTekk’s shadow influence is everywhere. The supernatural internment camps push research data back to their servers. The FBI and government are their close partners. And MagiTekk foments discord between the mortals and the supernatural to enhance sales of their weapons.
The loop changes after Ruby and Roark remove tracking chips that Marshall implanted within them. He becomes more aggressive and hostile. Ruby learns that he’s been planning MagiTekk’s demise—a perfect day of destruction that involves bombing one of their buildings—for almost a year within the loop.
Realizing that Marshall will soon become unstoppable, she cuts a deal with Malcolm Roark—one that his son insinuates they’ll come to regret. Ruby gives up the location of a sorceress geneticist she met on one of her trips through the loop; in return, one of Malcolm’s soldiers explains how to deal with time magic. Malcolm Roark’s Ghosts wipe the sorceress off the face of the map.
Ruby and Roark track down Marshall at an apartment building in Old Phoenix; Roark is shot during the altercation by one of the necromancer’s traps. Ruby goes after Marshall on her own. Using her powers as a Realmfarer, she channels a vision of the future—confident that Roark will live, she shoots Marshall during the ensuing gunfight.
As he dies, Marshall passes on the burden of ending MagiTekk’s corrupt reign to her and Roark, which she accepts. His goal was either to dismantle MagiTekk himself or train a worthy successor via the loop. With the latter occurring, the loop ends and he dies.
The FBI, however, doesn’t honor its end of the bargain, sending Ruby back to the Tempe Camp. But Roark arrives a week later—he’s purged her file from the FBI database with the help of one of his CIs, which means she’s now free to do as she wants. Roark asks her if she wants to help him bring MagiTekk down from the inside.
Ruby agrees, and they ride away from the camp, ready to dismantle MagiTekk as partners.
1
>
Penthouse Skywalk
Downtown Phoenix
Present
“You’re causing us problems, Realmfarer. But then, this is nothing new.”
“Sorry to be such an inconvenience,” I retorted as the tips of my ankle boots clung to the edge of the skywalk’s carbon frame, searching for purchase. Rough hands held my legs, keeping me from hurtling to the ground face-first—for now. Broken glass from the shattered window tore through my jeans. At 5,500 feet, the air was thin, the smallest of movements feeling fatal.
Wind howling in my ears, I watched as a strand of spit drifted into the cloudless night. It was tinged red with blood. Or maybe that was from the neon holo-ads dancing thousands of feet below.
A strong hand pushed me closer to the abyss. Donovan Martin’s henchman wasn’t playing around—this situation had gone from alarming to code red in about three minutes. Kudos for efficiency, even if I was on the wrong end.
“Tell me all you know, Ruby.” Donovan’s kind voice was incongruous with the barbaric threat of throwing me off the penthouse skywalk. “Come clean before you die.”
“I don’t suppose there’s a door number two?”
“There is no safe haven in this world for sinners.”
“I wish someone had told me that two hundred years ago.” Wind streamed through my hair, the brown strands fluttering over my eyes.
Just as well.
It’d be better not to see the ground before I hit.
Where the hell was Roark? Partners implied equal share. But here I was, head dangling over downtown Phoenix, my “partner” nowhere in sight. Then again, I had decided to investigate this lead alone. So maybe the problem started with me.
But it’d still be nice if Roark checked his voicemail. Sooner rather than later.
“Your conscience can be free.”
“Already feeling plenty free,” I said, breathing heavily.
“What have you uncovered about our crusade?” A sandal tapped against the carbon floor. “To whom have you whispered our secrets?”
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