His Caress of Shadows (The Kaldr Chronicles Book 4)

by Kody Boye

  We maneuvered along the thin road until we made our way to a visitor’s parking lot, wherein Shadow secured the vehicle into the largest space possible at the furthest end of the lot. Distantly, cave faces could be seen at the edges of long walking paths, though whether or not these caves were the ones housing vampires was up for anyone’s interpretation.

  “Listen up,” Scarlet said, raising her voice in an authoritative manner as possible. “I hate making speeches. I’m even worse at giving them. So here’s the deal: I’m not going to be able to protect you. I’ll do my best to watch your backs and draw their attention toward me, but I can’t guarantee that you’re going to be safe.”

  “I figured as much,” I said.

  “Draw your weapons the moment we leave the camper and prepare for anything.”

  Anything.

  The way she said that word made my blood run cold.

  With a nod, and with determination I felt I would lose if offered even the slightest chance to back down, I reached for the camper door, pulled in a deep breath, then stepped out of the camper.

  The night air was humid and claustrophobic—sickly in its intensity and even more morbid in that it tasted of heat and lies.

  Standing there, in the middle of the parking lot, drawing my sword and listening to the sound of cicadas, I waited for my companions to disembark behind me.

  Scarlet drew up alongside me and pressed a hand to my shoulder. “You hang back and watch my back, Ice Man.”

  “Got it,” I said.

  With that, we started forward.

  3

  The paths were overrun with vegetation from lack of maintenance. Snarled with weeds, stricken by grass, they offered little in the way of reassurance as we wandered their dangerous passes. I was half-afraid that I’d be bitten by a rattlesnake before we even reached the caves, but the further we went, the more I realized that was likely not to be the case.

  “Everyone ok back there?” Scarlet asked.

  Collective nods and ‘yeses’ were uttered between the three of us.

  Shadow—who took up our rear—cleared his throat and said, “Movement.”

  The cave face in front of us flickered with shadow before someone—or, more likely, something—disappeared into it.

  Be prepared for anything, Scarlet had said.

  My fingers tightened around my sword until my knuckles popped.

  The sound—so deathly loud in such a quiet space—resembled a God bearing down upon us from His almighty throne.

  Scarlet raised her gun, cleared her throat, and said, “Agency operatives. Come out so I can see you.”

  No response came.

  No movement followed.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat and edged closer behind Scarlet. “Do you think,” she said.

  A figure lashed out from the darkness.

  Scarlet’s gun went off before I could even respond.

  The silver bullet—which struck the Howler which had been lying in wait—burned through its fur and skin tissue and silenced the creature before it could spring toward us. It fell, dead, just inches away from my feet.

  “How did you,” I started.

  “They’re coming,” Aerick said.

  They moved like shadows created by a flock of birds—perfect in formation and eerily silent in their intent. From the caves they appeared, like phantoms in the darkest of nights. Wrapped in cloaks that hid their appearances, the creatures—which were undoubtedly Sanguine—drew forward, surrounding us in mere moments.

  Scarlet didn’t hesitate.

  She fired.

  The first Sanguine went down instantaneously. A second and third lashed toward the black woman and attempted to knock the gun from her hand. Before they could do so, however, a blade was drawn from her side and blood spilled the air as she retaliated in kind—cutting from one’s hand several fingers and another’s neck the flesh that held its countenance in place.

  At my side, Guy fired a shot into a Sanguine’s head.

  Aerick lashed out with his claws.

  I thrust my sword into an approaching vampire’s gut.

  The creature continued coming—spearing itself on my sword as it drew nearer.

  I twisted.

  Its guts slipped out.

  It continued to come regardless.

  I raised my hand and pulled, from the air, moisture, and formed along my hand a dagger before stabbing it straight through the creature’s head.

  A mere moment was all it took for me to remove the creature’s rotting head from its body.

  “There’s too many of them!” Guy cried as he fired another shot into the air.

  Shadow—who’d since shifted into his smoky form—returned to his physical body and roundhouse kicked two Sanguine away from us. “They’re slow,” the Wiper said. “Rotting. These aren’t the leaders.”

  “Then where,” I started.

  Figures—faster than birds—burst from the caves, teeth bared and screeching throughout the night.

  Scarlet drew her katana from her back and engaged with the three creatures as they drew nearer.

  I couldn’t believe it.

  This wasn’t happening.

  All this death, all this destruction, all this—

  A plume of fire exploded just inches from my feet.

  “Come on!” Aerick cried. “Not witches!”

  Guy fired a shot into the crowd—seemingly blindly at that—before tossing the gun at his feet and slinging daggers of ice from bloody wounds running along his arms.

  Rearing my sword back, I cut down one of the creatures coming toward me and then prepared for another to strike—drawing my sword first up, then along its arm until I met with its torso and cut it in half. Its flesh parted easily—too easily—and its bones, brittle, cracked and caved under such meek pressure. A second, albeit fresher Sanguine host drew forward and attempted to launch itself at me, but I brought my sword between I and it before it could do so.

  It sunk down its length.

  It lashed out at me.

  Its nails dragged along my face and blood sprayed from fresh wounds.

  “Shit!” I cried. “Fuck!”

  Aerick—half-man, half-Howler—launched itself at the creature and tore both it and my sword from my grasp.

  I stumbled, then fell at Guy’s feet.

  The Kaldr—wreathed in bloodied, frozen armor—did battle with the witch who was attempting to melt from his body the ice that ensconced his figure.

  Defenseless now that I had no weapon, I drew the blood that ran down my face into miniature frozen balls and launched them into the crowd.

  At their speed, they cut through most anything they reached—that was, until the tallest and freshest Sanguine I had seen appeared from the darkness.

  There was little I could do before it reached out and grabbed me.

  Hauled, from the ground, by my throat, I locked my wrists around the creature’s arm as it strangled me in midair.

  “DePella,” it said. “I wondered when you’d showed up.”

  Its face—

  Its voice—

  Its malice—

  All were reminiscent of the vampire I had met along the road on our way back from the Winters’ family ranch.

  I lashed out with my foot—only managing a slight hit along its side—and grimaced as Guy yelled for me to hold on.

  “Nothing can save you now,” the creature said. “We are many. We are legion.”

  Legion.

  I trembled, gasping for air.

  The witch screamed and Guy roared as he came forward.

  The Sanguine tossed me aside.

  It turned.

  It faced the Kaldr.

  It thrust its dagger-like hand forward.

  No amount of ice could have prevented what happened next.

  Crystalline armor shattered.

  Blood spilled through the air.

  Guy—impaled on the creature’s hand—could only look up and at the Sanguine’s face. “Jason,�
� he managed.

  “NO!” I screamed, dragging my sword from the ground and flinging it wildly through the air.

  The Sanguine’s head came free of its body so simply that I thought I’d blacked out—that what I had just seen was merely a vision of hell and nothing more.

  But it wasn’t.

  As the creature slumped to the ground, and as Guy was freed from its grasp, he fell to his knees with a gaping hole in his chest and blood pooling from his mouth.

  “NO!” I screamed.

  I fell to his side and caught him before he could reach the ground, but by then it was already too late.

  Guy was dying in my arms.

  “Jason,” he said.

  “It’s ok,” I said, reaching up to touch his face as around us the battle continued to surge. “I’m here.”

  “Don’t let them win,” he said, reaching up to take hold of my hand. “Don’t… let…”

  “Don’t talk, Guy. Everything’s going to be fine. You’re going to live.”

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t do more for you,” he said. “And I…” He choked, blood pooling from his mouth. “I’m sorry I couldn’t give you the life you wanted.”

  “You gave me everything,” I replied. “You gave me…”

  I trailed off, then, as his body slackened beneath me and his breathing began to slow.

  “I love you,” I whispered.

  A faint smile was all he could offer before he stopped breathing.

  I couldn’t move.

  I couldn’t think.

  What little breath I managed to draw into my chest was lost a moment later.

  I screamed.

  I rose, then, after depositing his body on the ground, and drew from my body every fragment of fear, hope, love, and loss that I’d ever experienced.

  Ice shattered from my skin’s depths.

  Blood exploded from my person.

  A glacial crown exploded from my temple and cheekbones.

  Armed, now, to the tooth and nail—with my fingers resembling frigid claws and my face entombed within an ever-thickening facade of armor—I started toward the group of Sanguine that continued to fight Scarlet, Aerick and Shadow.

  And decimated them.

  4

  My bones were ice, my heart frigid, my blood pale blue. Whether or not it was the result of Kaldr magic I did not know, but as I stood there—beneath the aspect of a full and blood-red moon—I took in everything that surrounded me.

  The Sanguine.

  The Howlers.

  The witches.

  Guy’s body.

  Behind me, Aerick sobbed, while at my side Scarlet continued to decapitate and then set ablaze the corpses of the creatures who would surely find other hosts if not properly dealt with.

  Numb to the world and all its feelings, I merely stood there, watching the procession at hand.

  This butchering—this funeral for the dead—was unlike anything I could imagine.

  But Guy…

  He was dead.

  And there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

  Breathless from the battle and too emotionally drained to cry, I stepped alongside Scarlet and pressed a hand to her shoulder.

  She stiffened immediately. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “I don’t need your pity,” I replied. “I need justice.”

  “The Sanguine are dead, Jason. There’s nothing you can do.”

  “We are many,” I said. “We are legion.”

  Scarlet stared. “That’s what—”

  “The Sanguine said to me,” I interrupted. “Right before it killed Guy.”

  “You can’t kill all the Sanguine, Jason. It’s impossible to even think you can.”

  I turned, and with the weight of the world slowly falling upon my shoulders, made my way to where Aerick knelt over Guy’s body.

  I reached down and touched him—drawing, from his person, the energy I knew I would need in order to properly survive.

  “Jason,” he managed. “What are you—”

  “Shh,” I said.

  He sobbed once more.

  I sighed as I felt the warmth beading along my arms and the wounds across my body closing. Though I’d never been instructed in this magic, I seemed to know it instinctively—as if it had been imprinted upon me upon my conception as a Kaldr.

  Aerick’s body stiffened.

  His flesh chilled.

  His breaths became ragged.

  I pulled away at what I felt was the very last moment before crouching down and draping an arm across his shoulder.

  Trembling, now, from the aftereffects of the feeding, he lifted his eyes—still glowing from his recent transformation—and stared at me. “Why?” he asked.

  “Because I need to be strong,” I said. “For both of us.”

  He lowered his head.

  He tightened his fingers around Guy’s hand.

  I reached forward and drew Guy’s eyelids over his eyes, so lost and cold and without a soul any longer. “His fathers will need to know,” I said. I lifted my eyes to face Shadow—who, somber in his approach, appeared troubled by the events playing out before him. “Shadow?” I asked.

  “Yes?” he replied.

  “Will you bring me a sheet to wrap him? I… don’t want him to… to…”

  The Wiper left before I could finish.

  Sighing, I drew my arms around Aerick’s body as I continued to stare at the man who had given me everything.

  My life.

  His love.

  My magic.

  My purpose.

  I knew, at that moment—as Scarlet continued to exterminate the Sanguine around us and set fire to their decrepit corpses—what I had to do next.

  After this was over—after Guy was buried, cremated, made to rest as ice—I would continue my life as I was meant to.

  That was what Guy would want… wasn’t it?

  I didn’t, and couldn’t, know.

  He was dead.

  And there was nothing I could do.

  PART 6

  1

  The funeral was unlike anything I could have ever imagined. Held in a secluded building just off I-35, it offered an insight into the Kaldr people and culture I could’ve never imagined facing.

  Dappled sunlight filtered in through the high windows of the abandoned building and onto the glacial formation upon which his body rested. Garbed in a traditional Kaldr robe that consisted of leather leggings and an open vest, his hands were crossed over his chest to hide the flesh wound that had rendered him lifeless and his eyes were closed in silent mourning—as if he, too, were meant to participate in this very act of his earthly departure. At his side, his father’s mourned—Elliot silently, Amadeo more openly. Aerick and I stood further back, watching the men as they attempted to console themselves over their only son’s passing.

  He was supposed to live forever.

  As of last night, that was no longer the case.

  Aerick cleared his throat, ushering my attention. “Hey,” he said, voice weak and almost inaudible. “Are you ok?”

  I couldn’t speak. Stunned into submission as I was, I could barely open my mouth, let alone utter any words that could offer condolences of any kind. For that reason, I simply tightened my hold on his hand and grimaced as the Castellano-Winters men bowed their heads and began to pray.

  The sound—so deathly quiet in a room where there were so few people—was like lightning hitting the top of a building: harsh, violent, filled with tension that could have cut steel wires. It was any wonder the roof didn’t cave in on us at that moment, as above motes of dust filtered down like snow in a forgotten and alien world.

  “Jason,” Elliot Winters said.

  I blinked. Trapped in the haze of grief, it was hard to process words and their true meanings. Hearing Elliot Winters, however—who could easily be considered my father-in-law if only because of the binding ceremony Guy and I had partaken in months beforehand—was enough to part the mists before my ethereal v
ision.

  I slipped from Aerick’s grasp and stepped forward, beside two of the only three men I could look to in such a desperate time. “Yes, sir?” I asked, trying my hardest not to show emotion.

  “It is, by tradition, that we are born of ice, but it is by rite of passage that we are raised through fire.” He unfurled his palm and revealed a simple zippo lighter. “Given that you were his partner, I feel that it is only appropriate that you do the honors of sending him off.”

  So—that was what the hay around the block of ice was for.

  We were meant to cremate him—and in doing so, erase him from the world forever.

  I stared at the zippo lighter held before me and tried to fathom its alien depths, its human concept, and its importance in the matters before me, and found myself trembling. I wanted so desperately to reach out and take it—to do what was right for the man I loved—but found that I couldn’t. Instead, I merely shivered—not because I was cold in the physical sense, but because I was slowly freezing to death on the inside.

  “Jason?” Amadeo asked, his voice wrought with sadness.

  “I’ll do it,” I said.

  This time, I was able to reach out and take hold of the zippo before me.

  Its mechanism was simple—a flick of the thumb that would spark to life the flame from the oil within—but its purpose was likened to the albatross who was meant to deliver the world its salvation. Through my hand would be summoned the fire—man’s greatest and undoubtedly most terrifying invention—and from that fire would be delivered a Kaldr whom had both given and taken everything from me.

  It took several moments for me to contemplate just what I was about to do. It took mere seconds for me to flip the switch and bring to life the fire within.

  “I don’t know to say,” I said as I stared at his body. “A part of me wants to say goodbye, but another part of me is angry that you’ve left me in the position I’m in.”

  The wind filtered through the broken windows at our side and disturbed the fire in my palm, bringing me ever closer to the act of ceremony I was just about to commit.

  “Another part of me,” I then said, as I considered that these were the last words I would ever say to the mortal body of Guy Winters, “wants to thank you. For bringing me out of poverty, for bringing me understanding, for giving me a gift that saved my life and allowed me to find myself in ways I could’ve never imagined possible.”