“Hang on a minute—”
I raised a hand to cut him off. “You passed the reins to me, remember?”
His shoulders sagged. “And you’ve done right by the team ever since. But, in this case, if you let any of the shades loyal to Asher live, then they may see you let Xavier’s contact escape. If that information gets back to Asher, your plan to free the resistance will fail.”
“Not if she expels him too,” Xavier said. “She can expel him, and I can pass him the information he needs. I’ll find a way to point him out to her.”
I hadn’t been in charge that long, but it felt like a bloody eternity. “I’ve got this. Trust me.”
Bane turned his head to look at Xavier. “Oh, I trust you all right. It’s him I’m not sure of.”
Xavier didn’t even flinch. He looked Bane straight in the eyes. “Well, it doesn’t seem like you have much choice, do you? You want her to live, then you need the kills.”
Bane’s jaw clenched. “If this is some kind of trap, some kind of ploy, then believe me, I will rip your throat out, Drayton’s body or not.”
Yep, Bane was back all right.
The room was suddenly throbbing with the threat of violence. Not what we were here for. I placed a hand on Bane’s arm. “How about we discuss the plan?”
Rivers pushed off the wall he’d been leaning on and headed over to the drinks tray. Bane walked over to the hearth, his favorite spot.
Yeah, this was as close to perfect as it was going to get right now. But I’d take it.
***
I stepped out of my room and smack bang into Abigor. He gripped my shoulders, his fingers digging in painfully.
“What did you do? What the fuck did you do?” He shook me so hard my teeth rattled.
Power surged up inside me, dangerous and hot, sensing the threat, sensing a winged. Shit. I twisted to get out of his grasp, not wanting to hurt him, but he held tight. And then an arm snagged his throat, and his grip on me loosened enough for me to break free.
Putting distance between us, I glared him down. “Dammit, Abigor. Do you want to fucking die?”
“I think he does. Very much,” Death said from behind Abigor. “You have no idea how close you were to being ended.” He released Abigor abruptly, and the Black Wing stumbled forward before regaining his balance.
If Death hadn’t shown up, then the power would have found its mark, so why had he stopped it? I met his eerie gaze, and he merely inclined his head and then leaned against the wall, arms crossed.
Abigor was breathing heavily, getting his emotions in control no doubt. “I apologize. I lost control.”
I rubbed my shoulder. “You don’t say?”
“What did you do to Lucifer?”
And here they were. The issues we’d suspected would arise as a result of Bane’s return. “Do? I didn’t do anything.”
“You’ve changed him.”
“No. I didn’t. He changed himself. He found his way back. He found me.”
Abigor scanned my face. “Bane came back for you?”
I gave him a deadpan look. “Bane came back because he was the stronger personality of the two.”
“But Lucifer has lived for millennia. He is a commander. He is our commander.”
“And what else? What else was he? Was he a friend? A lover? Was he loved?”
Abigor blinked and then shook his head as if not comprehending the question.
Death groaned. “I think what she’s trying to say is that Bane had connections—real, visceral connections to this world. He had people who loved him and people he loved, and that gave him the edge over Lucifer.”
Abigor seemed to deflate before my eyes. “He was always the warrior. Always the commander. He would pass the orders, and we would execute them, but in the end he was always alone.” A spark of something akin to understanding flared in his eyes. “I’m sorry I lost control.”
“It’s all right. I get it. You got your commander back and now you feel like you’ve lost him again, but you haven’t. Everything that Lucifer was, everything that he knows, is still there. He is still there. Lucifer is Bane.”
Abigor ran a hand over his face. “We will have to hope that he is able to convince the others of that.”
“Does it matter what he looks like on the outside?”
Abigor’s eyes narrowed. “Didn’t it matter to you?”
“No. All that mattered was that Bane was gone, that when I looked into his eyes there was a stranger looking back at me. But he’s back now, and it doesn’t matter what he looks like on the outside. All that matters is that I can see the soul I fell in love with when I look at him.”
Death, who had been silent and watchful up until now, let out an exasperated sigh. “You and your words.” He sounded almost annoyed.
I was grateful for the assistance with the whole stopping-me-from-killing-Abigor thing, but no one had asked him to hang around for the after-show. “What just crawled up your crack and died?”
But he winked out of existence, leaving me alone with Abigor.
“I doubt you should speak to Death in that way.” Abigor’s tone was weighted with concern. “He is not to be trifled with.”
“But it’s okay for him to trifle with us?”
Abigor stuck out his bottom lip in thought. “There is more to him than we understand, and until we know for sure, we must be wary around him.”
“Well, he just saved your life, because I was about to incinerate you.”
“You would do that?”
“I don’t think I’d have had a choice.” I rubbed my arms, suddenly chilly with foreboding. “It was like the power just took over for a moment.”
He put some more distance between us. “I should go and check on Abbadon.”
Great. I’d just frightened a Black Wing. “How is he?”
“They wounded him pretty badly. Most of the injuries were internal, but he is almost back to himself. Another day and he will be joining us in the fight.”
“Well, if tonight goes to plan then we’ll have delivered another blow to Asher.”
We parted ways, and I headed to the main entrance where my ride would be waiting. Hopefully my power was going to get what it wanted very soon.
Chapter 6
The abandoned railway was a hulking shadow that the moonlight seemed to be deliberately avoiding. Debris scattered the ground by the wire fence with the Keep Out signs bolted to it—old crates and empty barrels, a shopping trolley and a battered sofa. This place seemed to have become a dumping ground for the local residents.
We’d parked the MPD van a block away and made the rest of the journey on foot, keeping to the shadows, working in stealth mode. Our dark clothes blended into the night. Xavier was dressed in Drayton’s Protectorate uniform. Every time he caught my eye my heart would leap and my mind would whisper, Drayton, and then crushing disappointment would follow because it wasn’t. Not yet.
“There’s a way in through a breach in the fence,” Xavier said. “This way.” He moved low and fast across the ground, veering to the left, skirting the desolate sofa set and a broken wooden bookcase, and then pulled back the wire fencing, which had been neatly cut and then folded into place to disguise the breach. We slipped through onto the platform, one by one, and, keeping to the pockets of darkness, made our way toward the old station house. A thin strip of light was visible through the gaps in a boarded-up upper window. It looked like the meeting had begun.
Tension radiated off Xavier as he led us around the building, moving in a crouch. He indicated the back door. I nodded and took the lead, entering the lower floor like a shadow. The downstairs was stripped bare and weak light filtered in through the boarded windows. A flight of steps led up to the meeting room. Ryker went first, and I followed, Xavier at my back with Orin and Rivers making up the rear. Halfway up, the boards creaked. We froze, holding our breath. But the steady murmur of conversation signaled that we hadn’t been detected yet.
Xavier would point out his
friend—the shade we were to leave unharmed, the one that would be lucky and get away. It was suspicious, yes, but hopefully Asher would be too incensed by the raid to dwell on one shade’s lucky escape. My body ached and itched to release some power, to burn and incinerate; it was a dull thud at the back of my head, and a writhing hunger in the pit of my belly. My daimon was silent, buried under the rush of divine power that hungered for destruction.
The door beckoned, and with a nod, Ryker burst into the room. Four shades in neph bodies greeted us. Was the largest one the general? They stared at us in shock and then they attacked.
“Serenity!” Orin yelled.
I ducked the swipe of a blade, rolled, hit the leg of the table, and was up in a blink, adrenaline killing the pain of the blow. I grabbed the nearest shade and slammed my hand against his head.
Xavier grabbed my prey’s shirt and leaned in to whisper something in his ear, and then he punched the shade in the face. The shade fell to the ground, and Xavier stepped back.
“Go for it.”
This was the one, his contact. I switched to aether-sight and expelled the shade. The power inside me screamed its frustration by searing my veins with fire. Shit. I needed a kill. Ryker had one pinned. I grabbed the shade’s head and tamped down on the power while I explored for a soul. Shit, this one was another expulsion. Switching to aether-sight, I yanked out the shade and moved on to Orin’s captive. Fuck, this couldn’t be happening.
“Kill it,” Rivers said.
I shook my head and expelled instead.
There was only one more left and Xavier had him pinned to the wall. But the shade wasn’t fighting back. They were locked in some kind of silent communication.
“Out of the way,” Ryker said. He reached for Xavier’s shoulder but Xavier spun and planted himself between us and the shade.
“No. You can’t,” he said. “He’s on the resistance side.”
“Isn’t this the general?” Orin asked.
“Newly minted. A lower general. He joined the resistance.”
Rivers snorted. “Is that what he told you?”
Xavier’s jaw ticked. “You need to expel him. You can’t kill him. I know he’s telling the truth. He spoke the code words.”
My head was pounding, and a red haze had settled over my vision. The power, which had been held back by force of will alone, was clawing at my insides, and my iron resolve was bending under the pressure.
Xavier focused on me. “Serenity, please ...”
Xavier was looking at me with Drayton’s face, and my mind flashed back to the moment in the cell underground when Drayton had made me promise to do whatever it took to protect myself, the moment when I’d ended his life, when I’d plunged my daggers into his chest and left him to die.
“Fuck this!” Rivers stepped forward and grabbed Xavier by the neck. “Get the fuck out of the way.”
“Rivers!” Orin sounded horrified. “What are you doing?”
“She needs to release that power, and she needs to do it now.” Rivers shoved Xavier aside and grabbed hold of the shade, who began to struggle in earnest. A good guy, he was one of the good guys. But the power didn’t care, burning me from within with the need to do harm.
Xavier scrambled up but Ryker and Orin blocked him.
“Serenity. Please don’t kill him. He’s on our side.”
Oh, God. I squeezed my eyes shut, breathing through the pain that had my body in its grip. That familiar build-up that signaled an eruption that would end me.
“Dammit, Serenity. You kill him or I will,” Rivers said. “Either way he’s dead. You might as well make his death worth something.”
“Rivers. Fucking hell.” Orin sounded resigned now.
Rivers held onto the bucking shade. “Don’t, Orin. Just don’t look at me like that. Look at her instead. Look at her lips, they’re fucking bloodless, and her eyes, have you ever seen them that dark? She’s in pain, and if she doesn’t do this, she will die and it’ll be on us. I, for one, am not gonna let that happen, no matter the cost.” He propelled the shade toward me. “Do it!”
The shade made a strangled sound, his eyes going wide. He was an innocent. I’d have to kill an innocent to stop the pain. “No.” It took every ounce of conviction I had to force my body away from the shade. “I won’t.” The word was guttural, squeezing past my constricted vocal cords and landing in the room like a challenge.
Rivers’s stormy eyes swirled with conviction. “Ryker.” He shoved the shade into Ryker’s arms and made for me.
No. I turned to run, but Rivers snagged me around the waist and carried me kicking and punching toward the shade, who was now held immobile by both Orin and Ryker. They were doing this. They were going to make me do this.
Let go. My daimon’s voice was a ghostly whisper, reed-like and far away. Fear clamped down on my lungs. She was fading. We were fading, lost beneath this power that had never been made for a mortal shell, no matter how sturdy.
Xavier tackled us from the left, but although Rivers stumbled he didn’t go down. The thud of fist against face and a scuffle ensued. The world was upside down and shrouded in crimson and then my hand was pressed to a chest. A heartbeat against my fingers, fast, way too fast. He was afraid. Of course he was afraid, because the monster was bearing down on him. And when I opened my eyes I saw the reflection of the beast in his.
I saw myself.
“Do it. Now.” Rivers’s tone was a command seeping into my brain and teasing at the final vestiges of my control. “You need this. You know you do, so fucking take it, damn you.”
The power was there, pressing at the tips of my fingers, coating the inside of my palm, desperate to be out, and my hold was slipping.
“Please don’t ...” Xavier pleaded.
“Serenity, we need you to do this.” Orin’s tone was coaxing. “We love you. We can’t lose you. Please stay with us.”
The final strand snapped, and with a roar the power rushed out of my fingers. Ryker and Orin cried out as they were propelled in opposite directions across the room by the vibration of power, but my hand was fused to this lower general, eating and burning and consuming. It took an extra surge to finish him off. He was strong, but not as strong as Xavier. And then it was over. Embers floated in the aether, teasing the air with the aftertaste of death. I fell to my knees and released the sob trapped in my throat because it wasn’t just the shade I’d killed. I’d killed the host soul too.
Two innocent deaths marked my conscience.
“We need to leave now,” Rivers said, as calm as a sea in the aftermath of an epic storm. “The expelled shades would have informed Asher what happened here by now. He could be sending reinforcements as we speak.”
True. But my body refused to move under the weight of my heavy heart. Desolation filled me. Desolation and relief. God, I was sick. The lives I’d taken before I’d realized what I was doing could be excused, but there was no excusing this.
“Serenity?” Ryker’s tone was tentative. His fingers grazed my shoulder. “We have to go now.”
I nodded and allowed him to pull me up. One thought was a burning beacon of certainty on my mind.
No more.
I wouldn’t do this anymore.
***
Sleep was brutal, tossing and turning me and then spitting me out like unwanted baggage, as if it too sensed what I’d done and couldn’t bear to cradle me. I swam into wakefulness, mentally bruised, to familiar voices.
“Marika has figured out a way to adjust the wards to allow specific shades through, but it’s going to require blood,” Ryker said. “Xavier says that won’t be an issue.”
“He’s going to back out on his end of the deal,” Rivers said. “We should leave his resistance to rot.”
“You still don’t trust him, do you?”
“And you do?”
“He’s understandably upset,” Ryker said. “What we did ... It had to be done, but ...” He sighed. “He locked himself in his room.”
�
�Drayton’s room,” Rivers snapped. “He locked himself in Drayton’s room.” The words were delivered like shards of ice. “I say we need to get him to deliver his end of the deal before we help him bring in his resistance. We speak to Drayton, and we find out how exactly to bring down Asher.”
“But the resistance will be waiting for him at the beach house in a few hours,” Ryker pointed out.
“And if he doesn’t give us what we want, then he won’t be there to greet them.”
“Rivers ...”
“How the heck do we know what he really said to his shade mole? How the fuck do we know if any of this is real? He could be playing us.”
“Come on, you don’t really believe that.”
There was a long beat of silence. “I think we should get what we need before we give him anything, that’s all.”
I opened my eyes to find them both perched on either side of me on the bed. The urge to pull the covers over my head and block them out was countered by my leadership duties and guilt. Yeah, frothing, bubbling, fucked-up guilt.
“No, Rivers.” I sat up. “We stick to the plan.”
Rivers frowned. “Why would we do that?”
Sometimes he was just so ... alien. “Because it’s the decent thing to do. Because the resistance could be invaluable in this fight, and most of all because I just killed his friend. I can’t be responsible for any more innocent lives. We have to bring the resistance to safety, and we need to do it ASAP.”
“None of them are innocent,” Rivers snapped. “They’ve taken hosts, they’ve killed. They have blood on their hands. Turning coat now doesn’t change that. They are not innocent. They never will be.”
The vehemence in his tone, the fire in his eyes, it was the most emotion I’d seen from him outside of our intimate moments, but even in those, he’d kept a wall erected, pulled back when I’d delved too deep.
And then it clicked. This wasn’t about the shades. This was about the Mind Reaper. This was about his guilt, his past, and the blood on his hands. This was about redemption. Tension radiated off him in waves. He was wound so tight he was bound to snap at any moment.
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