“You can’t handle it,” he snapped.
Christ. Mr. Sensitive.
“Lyhtans are dangerous creatures. You’ll need protection.”
“I can protect myself,” I said. “Just tell me how. Do I need a special weapon—kryptonite? Holy water?”
“I’ll take care of it,” Raif said, distant and thoughtful. “Lyhtans are usually quite predictable. I don’t like that this one isn’t. They don’t take Shaede prisoners. They kill us. In the meantime, if you insist on going out during the day, take the Jinn with you.”
“Um, the what?” I said.
“Your friend. What’s his name—Tyler?”
“Oh, Ty. Well, I doubt he’d be much help. What’s a Jinn anyway—some kind of Shaede slang for human?”
Raif gave me the strangest look. Like he wanted to say something. Instead, he graced me with a benign smile.
“What do you want me to use Ty for if I get in a pinch?” I really wanted to know what made Raif think he’d make a decent protector. “You want me to feed him to the Lyhtan or something?”
Raif laughed. It sounded foreign coming from him, like a bird meowing. He was too hard for laughter; it didn’t suit him. “Let’s say I’d be willing to bet Tyler would give you anything you want.”
“O-kay,” I said. “Whatever. Listen, Raif. I’m tired of being led around by a ring in my nose. I want in the loop. Otherwise, why the pomp and circumstance? I’m working my ass off, not knowing why or for whom. I don’t want to fly blind anymore. I’m done guessing. Who’s this guy Xander wants dead so bad?”
Raif sighed. “What if I told you he wants you to kill his son?”
Words stalled in my throat. Jesus. Xander didn’t dick around, did he? “He wants me to kill his . . . son?”
“Yes,” Raif said, his voice hinting at disappointment. “It’s become . . . necessary, I’m afraid. It was a fact he wanted withheld until the last possible moment. He didn’t want your conviction to waver.”
Well, it wasn’t going to win him any Father of the Year awards, but that was his business. Mine was killing. “I guess he’s got his reasons. But why would it matter to me?”
“We agreed that the fewer people who know, the less the risk that it gets out. He doesn’t want his people to find out, and I don’t blame him. I’ve never met a better fighter than Alexander’s son. Nor anyone more ambitious. Trust me when I say your training is necessary. I want you ready for anything.”
Anything. Before I could ask him to elaborate on that, he was gone.
I made my way home in the hours before dawn. I took comfort from the fact that the Lyhtan would not be able to torment me until the sun crested the horizon. But after that, I was fair game. I opted to glide as a shadow while the waning light permitted. But as night faded quickly away, I wasn’t strong enough to remain shrouded and was forced to walk in my solid form. I could have called Tyler or a cab to pick me up, but I wanted the time alone to think.
I spent the rest of the day in my studio, waiting for the Lyhtan, which never came. The time spent anticipating an attack ticked by torturous and slow. Perhaps that was the plan. Mess with my head; keep me guessing; drive me crazy. It worked. I was going out of my fucking mind waiting for that damned thing to make its move. Nothing . Not even a whisper.
Tyler showed up later in the afternoon. It wasn’t yet twilight; the sun had a couple of good hours left before it sank out of sight. I suppose he’d picked that opportune time to come for a reason. He wasn’t alone.
He’d brought a girl with him. Interesting. I might have been jealous if she’d been his type, but she obviously wasn’t. Meek, thin, and sallow, she shuffled her feet beside him, keeping her shoulders and arms hunched close to her body as if protecting a secret. Her mousy brown hair, stringy and not even a little lustrous, hung around her childlike form. Totally unremarkable. Only her blindness made me take notice.
Her milky blue eyes gave her away and creeped me right the hell out. And they didn’t move—ever. If she heard a noise or sensed movement, her head would jerk and tilt. The motion of a small creature, alert in the presence of a predator. She stayed close to Tyler, moving with every shift of his body as if tied to him with a length of rope, urging her to stir whenever he did.
“You should have called first,” I said. I didn’t like company. Especially weird company.
Tyler shrugged, leaving his guest in my living room and following me into the kitchen. “I wanted you to meet Delilah,” he whispered.
“Why?” I adopted his quiet tone, ignoring the girl. “What makes you think I would want to meet her?”
“Well, if you don’t want me around during the day, I thought Delilah could give you a hand.”
“Really?” I said. “Sorry, Ty, but she doesn’t look good for much. What am I supposed to do with her?”
“I’m standing right here!” Delilah snapped. Well, she had more-than-decent hearing and a fiery temper. Good. It was a bit of a shock, really, to hear such a strong, snarky voice come out of a weak and fragile body. I’d expected something much more demure.
“Sorry, kid,” I said. “So . . . you tell me: What good are you?”
“I have a gift,” she said. “I can see things you can’t.”
“Oh yeah? Like what?”
“I can see the Lyhtan during the day when it’s invisible.”
Okay, that got my attention. Not even Levi had supplied me with that little tidbit of information. “How do you know what they look like? Have you seen one before?”
“Yes.”
A real conversationalist. We might get along after all. “Well, what did it look like?”
“Ugly,” she said. “Ugly as sin.”
Her assertion seemed to match Levi’s. Maybe I’d finally stumbled across a couple of people who weren’t intent on bullshitting me to death.
“They can’t pass as human?” I asked, waiting to see if once again her answer would match Levi’s.
“No. Not even a little.”
“Can you see me right now?” I asked her.
“No. But if you were to take your other form, I could.”
Hmm. More food for thought.
“So, again, what help do you think you’d be to me? I can hear the Lyhtan. And I can sure as hell smell it. That’s good enough.”
“Is it?” she asked. “How do you fight a voice?”
Damn. She had a point. Even if Raif was successful in getting me something to defend myself with, I didn’t want to hack away at the air, hoping I was getting a piece.
“You might be worth keeping around for a while,” I admitted.
“I don’t work for free,” she said.
A woman after my own heart. “Fine. Ty can negotiate your fee.”
A stiff nod sealed the deal, and Tyler led her back to the lift.
“I have to take her home,” he said. “But I’ll be back later.”
“Don’t bother,” I told him. A suspicious glance was all he was going to get out of me tonight. I guess I wasn’t the only “interesting” person Tyler hung out with. “I’m meeting Raif in an hour.”
He turned and, without another word, left with weird little Delilah in tow.
Chapter 12
Raif stood in the center of the warehouse, staring at an empty bottle. I approached him slowly, wondering at his strange behavior, and wary that he was trying to trick me into distraction. His body looked too relaxed for a fighting stance, his concentration centered on the vessel. I paused a couple feet away, and Raif’s eyes drifted shut. He brought the wide mouth of the bottle to his lips and expelled a slow, long breath. My own halted in my chest as I watched his breath become visible, dark and glistening. Thick like black mercury, the substance crept into the bottle, and when he had no more air to expel, he shoved a cork into the opening, trapping the murky sludge inside.
“Holy shit, Raif!” I said. “What in the hell is that?”
“A means to defeat sunlight.” An unguarded smile dawned on his face, and I couldn
’t help but smile back.
I looked at the sludgy black goo in the bottle and back at his face. I didn’t know what sort of expression I was wearing, but Raif looked back at me, his smile faded. He couldn’t stand my lack of knowledge—and I didn’t blame him.
“How did you do that?” I asked.
“I’m only one of a few of us who can produce that little bit of magic.” Raif sounded proud of himself, and he had a right to be. Damn. “Anam Scáth. Soul Shadow.” Raif shook the container of bottled shadows, presumably extracted straight from his soul. Must have been the deadly shadow Xander had been talking about. Amazing.
“I had no idea—” I bit back the words. No shit I had no idea. I didn’t have a fucking clue. “I can’t do anything like that,” I said, still amazed. “Who else can do it?”
Raif raised a challenging brow. He had no intention of spilling that little secret. “Our individual abilities are connected to our lineage. Those of us closer to the roots of our family tree are blessed with certain . . . gifts. But you”—he gave me an appraising stare—“are nothing more than a leaf on that tree, twisting in the wind.” I sensed a touch of Xander’s arrogance in Raif’s tone. An almost royal superiority that hinted of bias. He’d been spending a little too much time with his king.
“Well, aren’t you special?” I drawled. Did I mention that I hate being treated like a second-class citizen? “So, tell me: What’s that little parlor trick for anyway?”
“There are only two times in a day’s cycle that Lyhtans and Shaedes can face each other as equals and you won’t need this. Can you guess when that might be?”
I thought about the question for a moment. My brain kicked in to high gear; I didn’t want Raif to be disappointed in me. Understanding dawned, and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it sooner. “Twilight and dawn.”
Raif smiled his deadly smile. “You’re catching on a little quicker, aren’t you? We are both vulnerable to any attack in the gray hours and much easier to kill. We won’t heal as quickly, and any wound could end up being fatal. In full day—or night, for that matter—we’re each much harder to kill. I’d suggest beheading if you should come across a Lyhtan after twilight. A quick and effective kill. Necessary too. They’re fast on their feet—faster than you could imagine, no matter the hour. If you should be attacked in full day, however, use the bottle.”
I wondered how I should use it. Pour the contents on to the ground? Drink it? Bash it over the head? Ask the Lyhtan to drink it? But I didn’t think such an evil and calculating creature would simply take the offering and swallow it down. I laughed.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“How do I use this?” I took the bottle, swirling the contents before I stuffed it into my coat pocket.
“Just pop the cork.” Raif drew his sword, tested the sharp edge with his thumb. “The shadows will do the rest.”
Okay, so play-by-play instructions weren’t exactly Raif’s thing. Sounded simple enough, though.
One: See a Lyhtan.
Two: Pop the cork.
Three: Watch the shadowy action go to work. Kind of like a shampoo ad. If shampoo were deadly.
“Delilah told me that Lyhtans are ugly as sin,” I said, shucking my coat and tossing it over a bench near our practice area. No need to mention Levi. I didn’t want to expose him to any undue scrutiny. “And in my opinion, we’re all pretty good-looking. I’ve been thinking of the whole, good-guy, bad-guy, beautiful-ugly, light-dark thing. Which are we? Good or bad?”
Raif snorted. Definitely disgusted. “We are nothing but what we are,” he said, very enigmatic. “Who’s Delilah?”
“A friend of Tyler’s . . . or something. She’s blind, but she can see things—invisible things. Like the Lyhtan during the day.”
“So he brought you this Seer to help you spot your attacker during the day?”
“I guess so. I could break her with one hand, she’s so tiny. I don’t think she’s good for much else.”
“You do keep strange company, don’t you?”
I didn’t have much time to contemplate his question because his sword was swinging toward my face.
My skills improved. I’d become faster, stronger, more adept. A warrior Shaede, Raif had made me a killing machine—lethal and unapologetic. And, in my opinion, ready for anything.
“No, not yet,” Raif said.
“Why not? You’re keeping something from me, aren’t you?” I shouted in the empty building.
Raif shook his head. “Your lack of patience is what’s going to get you killed,” he said in his dead-calm tone. “You can’t charge ahead like a young bull on this one. You are an assassin. Let your stealth be your greatest weapon. Be patient, and your prey will come to you.”
“When?” I asked.
“Soon,” he said.
“You know what, Raif?” I said, my anger boiling, “I wish you’d—”
Raif clamped a hand tight over my mouth. “Shhh. Don’t you ever mutter that word in my presence.”
“Wha wrd,” I mumbled behind his hand.
“Wish.”
He slowly removed his hand from my mouth, as if afraid I’d actually say it. “You want to elaborate on that?” I asked.
“No. Just watch your mouth.”
Again, I walked home in the hours before morning with a thousand questions, the least of which being the strange weapon that was supposed to protect me from the Lyhtan. Why not a sword—a magic sword? Wasn’t there supposed to be a magic sword that kills us? Why not one for the Lyhtans too? And now that I thought about it, when was I going to get a magic sword? I’d need one if I was going to kill Xander’s son. Instinctively, I reached my hand to my back and caressed the hilt of the katana. Maybe I’d had a magic sword all along. . . . But would Raif let me train with something that could actually kill him? I was a walking question machine, spitting out queries faster than my brain could fathom an answer. I made it to my building and found Delilah on the sidewalk, waiting for me.
“Delilah,” I said in greeting.
“Hi!” she said in that self-assured voice that was an oxymoron to her appearance.
“See anything creepy hanging around?”
“Not yet,” she said. “Can I come up?”
I grabbed her hand and helped her to the apartment. But truth be told, she didn’t need much help. She didn’t suffer from her lack of actual sight. First impressions can be misleading.
Delilah had a strange sense of the world around her. I guess I should have anticipated as much. After only a single tour of the place, she knew her way around my apartment as if she’d lived there for years.
“Have you known Ty long?” I asked, setting the bottle of shadows on my kitchen counter.
She took a seat in front of the TV, listening to one of those cheesy court shows. I pretended not to mind. “I’ve known Tyler for ages,” she said.
“Huh.” Ages couldn’t have been too long; she looked barely old enough to be out of high school. “How old are you, Delilah?”
“Older than you’d think.”
God, how I hated cryptic answers. It seemed as though everyone around me had taken a class in beating around the bush. “And you’re not a run-of-the-mill psychic human, right?”
“Nothing gets past you.” Delilah laughed, and I sent a glare her way that would have given anyone else a moment of heart failure. But she didn’t flinch. My dirty looks were a wasted effort.
So Tyler had at least one more supernatural friend than I’d thought. Not counting the very human, very informed Levi. How many more did he have stashed away for a rainy day? Thinking of the way I’d wandered the city, ignoring all of my better senses, made me sick. I’d been surrounded for years and stuck my head in the sand. How very smart of you, Darian. Christ. “When did you see the Lyhtan?”
Her lips curved into a slight smile, making her look even more waifish. “I’ve seen them more than once. They’re not very agreeable characters. They like to create havoc wherever they
go. And they’re nasty too. Mean, masochistic beasts. When I see one, I run the other way.”
“Run?” I couldn’t picture her running anywhere.
“I’m not weak,” she said. “You should know looks can be deceiving.”
“I guess you’re right,” I said. I didn’t exactly look like your average dangerous killer, though how she knew that, I have no idea.
“What do you have planned for today?” Delilah asked.
“I’ve been up all night. I plan on sleeping.”
“Do you care if I hang around while you sleep? Tyler insisted that I stick to you like glue during the day.”
Tyler. What an annoyance he was becoming. Annoying and somehow . . . endearing. “Suit yourself,” I said, heading for the bathroom. I wasn’t going to be responsible for her. If she got herself into trouble from hanging around, that was her problem. “I’m taking a shower. Then I’m going to bed.”
Delilah cranked up the volume on the TV. I didn’t give two shits what she did, as long as she stayed out of my hair.
I didn’t linger in the shower. I staggered into the single room of my studio, ready to hit the sheets and say good-bye to this miserable excuse for a day.
“Hey, Darian . . .” Delilah said.
“Hey, what?” I grumbled as I fell facedown on my bed.
“What’s in the bottle you brought with you? It sounds like it’s full of tar.”
Blind, schmind. Delilah didn’t miss a beat. “Raif gave it to me,” I said. “It’s supposed to be some kind of anti-Lyhtan serum or something.”
“Cool,” she said, just like an enraptured kid. Then asked shrewdly, “Who’s Raif?”
“My teacher, sort of.”
“Hmm. Well, I hope I get to see that stuff in action.”
“Delilah,” I muttered, only half paying attention. “You are one weird chick.”
I heard her giggles mingling with the raucous court-show guests cheering for the verdict. I blocked her out and found a restful sleep.
After weeks of the same boring routine, I decided to skip class, so to speak. A training-free night was what I needed. I called Raif—it always cracked me up to call his cell phone and think of him standing there, talking in his Robin Hood–meets-Legolas outfit—and requested the night off. He let me off the hook easier than I expected. Maybe he was sick of me. The sun had set, Delilah had left, and I wasn’t under house arrest. So I went to The Pit.
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