Emmanuel held his hand up. “I know, Gabriel. I haven’t forgotten that there are suspicions regarding the relationship between Peter and the London Demons we suspect were meeting him in New York, Fergus and Lara, but the fact remains that we are fighting this battle blind. We are still no closer to knowing whom we are fighting or how to best them. They have been two steps ahead of us all along, almost as if they know which Silent Home we’re trying to emancipate before we know it ourselves.”
Emmanuel’s shoulders sagged, and he lowered himself into the seat. “The Angelic Council hold us responsible for the Guardians who were killed trying to protect that Shadow Home in Moscow. They are turning their eye on us with more intensity than they have in centuries. We can’t fight this thing on two fronts, Gabriel. We are barely fighting it on one. If the Masters think the London Demons have something to say that could help us, we are in no position to refuse. I am sorry.”
Gabriel leaned forward on his elbows to respond to Emmanuel but stopped short when the corner of the room began to shiver. I blinked as my eyes struggled to focus on the group of people stepping through the portal led by Mathas. The Masters had arrived.
Chapter Five
The people following Mathas into the room were mostly middle-aged. Some were wearing suits, others training gear, but there was no sign of the hooded robes that Brandon had imagined. I recognized Camille’s petite form and the glints of her platinum hair as she scanned the table until she found her son. Lucas tipped his head in her direction, and the line of her mouth softened. The Masters slipped into the seats around the conference table in silence.
Mathas gave Lizzie an intense look as he passed her and retreated to the furthest corner of the room. Emmanuel settled himself at the head of the table. Lizzie drew close to his side but remained standing. Gabriel glanced from Mathas to Lizzie uncomfortably, and pushed back from the table. Lizzie extended her hand. “Gabriel, please, sit. Mathas and I are not Shadow Children, we don’t get involved in their business, except to extend our support if we feel it’s right. You’ve earned a different role at this table. Please, join your friends.”
Gabriel hesitated for a moment. I shot him pleading look, and he pushed himself back into the chair and folded his arms, but his foot tapped against the floor like a rapid heartbeat. Emmanuel cleared his throat. “Masters, friends, children. Thank you all for joining us today, and thank you also to our generous hosts for allowing us to use this protected meeting space. I apologize for the sudden summons and the lack of information regarding its cause. In fact, I’m still unsure myself as to what findings merited such drastic an unprecedented action, but I believe Victoria can enlighten us. If you please?”
Emmanuel gestured to his right, and a small, plump woman stood up. She was barely taller than Emmanuel’s seated frame, and her round face was remarkably fresh and sweet, as though the wrinkles in her skin were merely carefully placed decorations. The flowing fabric of her floral sundress rustled against the chair. She rested her hands on the tabletop and ran her gaze around the table. I sat up straight in my seat. This woman might have looked like an aging fairy tale princess, but the silver of her eyes revealed a sharpness that belied her soft appearance.
“Three weeks ago, I received a message from the leader of the London Demons. Emmanuel had expressed his concerns with us regarding the suspected involvement of members of the London collective in the tragic circumstances surrounding the infiltration of the Irish cell by one of the Spirit Eaters last year." The Master’s voice projected across the room with ease, and I wondered had she been on the stage before she gave her life to the service of the Shadow Children. Highly unlikely given the Halfborn magic that I could sense emanating from her presence.
Victoria lifted a piece of paper from her fuchsia purse and laid it on the table. "We have been cautious in our dealings with the London Demons ever since, and they appeared to be equally wary of contacting us. Until I received this correspondence from Niamh."
She handed the note to Emmanuel, and his eyes scanned the piece of paper before he read it aloud to the room. “I send you this message in warning, not because I feel you can alter what will be, but so that you know where to turn when the inevitable occurs. Change is coming, and it will bring an end. When the time comes, if your wisdom is greater than your pride, seek me out. Respectfully, Niamh, Demon Ambassador to the United Kingdom.”
Lizzie snatched the slip of ivory paper from Emmanuel’s hands and pinched it between her fingers and thumb. “That’s it? Two lines of nonsense, some sort of failed threat, and you think it’s worth dragging every available Master halfway across the planet?” She slammed the paper down onto the table. “Niamh has always had a flair for the dramatic. Ignore her.”
Victoria stared at Lizzie for a moment, unmoving. “It goes without saying that my first reaction was to inform those I felt it was appropriate to inform and otherwise ignore this piece of obscure communication.” She twisted her body so that it faced the rest of the table once more. When she spoke again, her voice was low. “Until today.”
In response to Victoria’s pointed glance, Emmanuel addressed the room. “As you know, we have been struggling to reach the Silent Homes and emancipate those who are being held captive before the Spirit Eaters do. The Seeker, Grace,” he gestured in my direction, “had sensed a strong presence of half energy surrounding a disused building on the edge of a small Yorkshire village. We sent a team to investigate the situation this afternoon. What they discovered was highly unusual.”
Emmanuel stared pointedly down the table toward Cain, Lucas, Gabriel, Sam, and myself. Cain nodded at Gabriel, but before Gabriel could begin to explain what we had found, one of the Masters raised his hand. “I would like to hear the information from one of the Demon-Born children.”
“Cain is a senior member of our cell and has led hundreds of active missions. Gabriel has spent decades investigating the actions of the Spirit Eaters. Either of these men can report on today’s incident with the necessary level of detail for the Masters.” Emmanuel’s smooth tones were stretched taut as a wire.
Victoria glanced from Emmanuel’s amber glare to the narrowed face of the small, thin master, whose eyes were darting from Sam to me like a hungry weasel stalking its next meal. Victoria tapped her nails on the table. “Be that as it may, Emmanuel, it does seem fitting that we should hear from the children who have been leading and directing the missions many of us have risked our lives, and the lives of those in our care, to partake in. We have given due respect to your wisdom and knowledge in this area, and we have allowed Master Camille to vouch for the character of these children, but I am curious to hear from them myself. To hear the tale from the horse’s mouth, as they say.”
I pulled at the collar of my shirt, suddenly aware of the oppressive heat building inside the conference room. Every face in the room turned towards Sam and me. Lucas shot us a sympathetic look. Cain and Gabriel both across folded their arms tightly across their torsos. It struck me for a moment how alike their body posture was. Similar and yet dissimilar, all at once, like two sides of the one coin— dark and light. Sam’s shoulders stiffened as the weasel-faced Master spoke again. “Yes, let’s hear from the Seeker. We’ve all been dancing to her tune for months now.”
I opened my mouth to speak but my lips were dry, and nothing came out. I stared down at my hands, aware of the staring faces surrounding me. Judging me. Dread wound its way around my throat like a noose.
“Is this a trial?” Sam’s eyes blazed like emerald fire as he questioned Victoria. She lifted her chin and tilted her head to the side, but didn’t respond. “I’m going to take that as a no, then. In that case, if you want to hear from a Demon-Born, you’ll hear from me. "
Relief washed over me like a spring tide. I crushed
my hands between my thighs to stop myself reaching out for Sam as he stood to face the Masters. He wasn’t mine to touch. “We suspected something was off from the start of the mission. Everything looked normal—the building was disguised as a disused hospital, the charm concealing the building’s appearance was in place, but something was off. Nobody could get a read on the energy. Grace felt like something was wrong. She thought it smelled bad.”
“This is the seeking advice we’ve been following? It smelled bad? Smelled bad!” Weasel Face threw his hands in the air and looked around at the other Masters. Victoria knocked sharply on the table and cut her eyes in his direction before nodding at Sam to continue.
Sam shoved his hair out of his eyes with a clenched fist. “We didn’t know if we should continue or not. Today was the day our cell reuniting after months apart, so Emmanuel was here getting everybody settled. We decided that because we had lost so many missions already this year, we had to go through with the plan, but the minute we got inside, it was obvious that something was really wrong. The place was deserted. There was no sign of life. No Guardians, no prisoners, no staff. We considered returning to base when we reached the ground floor, but we agreed to check the garden as a last precaution—”
“This is exactly the lack of protocol that has resulted in such heavy losses this year. Did your cell learn nothing from Moscow?” William’s lips were so tightly compressed that they had almost disappeared.
Emmanuel leaned heavily on the glass table and glowered down at the other Master. “William, you would be well advised to tread very carefully. Moscow was an unavoidable tragedy.”
William. Weasel Face didn’t look like a William, but I guess most people don’t name their children after rodents. William sat back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest like a petulant toddler. Emmanuel nodded at Sam to continue. Sam stared out the window. “The backyard was a mess. It was a bloodbath. There were bodies everywhere, piled in lines all along the garden. Somebody had covered them with soil, but just barely. I’ve never seen so many bodies in one place. There must have been hundreds.”
“Hundreds? That can’t be right, Emmanuel had informed me of the details regarding this mission yesterday. There were at most fifty people being held in that Silent Home.” Lucas’s mother drew her delicate, fair eyebrows together.
“That’s what we assumed when we entered the Silent Home, Camille. Approximately fifty prisoners, twenty Guardians, and possibly ten other members of staff. Angels. But that’s not what we found. Obviously, we can’t provide an exact number, but there were far more than fifty bodies.” Sam’s voice was softer when he answered Lucas’s mother than it had been before.
Camille squeezed her eyes shut. “You shouldn’t have stayed to investigate. You should have left immediately. We’ve no idea who would have done such a thing. In all my years helping people escape from the Silent Homes, I have never seen a mass execution. Why would they do this? Who would do this?”
Victoria rose to her feet again and smoothed down the layers of her dress. She poked a finger in Sam’s direction, indicating that she should retake his seat. Pursing her lips, Victoria pulled another slip of paper from her purse. “This afternoon I received another message from the London Demons. It warned me that the foretold series of events had already been set in motion, and we must emancipate those held captive in a Silent Home in Edinburgh if we wished to attempt to alter the course that had been set for the Shadow Children.”
Edinburgh. That was where Emmanuel thought they had taken the Shadow Children who were caught during the failed raid on the Silent Home in Moscow. My heart started to beat faster. Gabriel’s fingers snaked around the arm of his chair. “You went to Edinburgh?”
The whispered question crawled over my skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake. Victoria’s mouth sagged at the corners. “We considered our actions first, it would have been rash to launch head first into a potential trap…” Victoria squared her shoulders. “We went to Edinburgh, but we were too late. The prisoners had already been moved.”
Sam and Gabriel began to bark questions across the table, but Emmanuel silenced them with a glare. He placed his hand next to Victoria’s so that they were almost touching. His long, slender fingers looked even darker and more elegant beside her small, plump fist. “Victoria, how do you know the prisoners had been moved? Perhaps that Silent Home had been evacuated at an earlier date? Silent Homes are regularly moved since the Guardians have become aware that they’re being systematically targeted.”
“It was cleared today, Emmanuel, not before. We are certain.” Victoria gave a sly look from under her lashes as she drew her hand away from his. “I may not have your level of skill, but I have my own means of extracting the truth. There were still two Guardians on site. With a little persuasion, they confirmed that orders had been given for all inmates and staff to relocate to a Silent Home down south. Yorkshire.”
Megan met my eye across the table, and my stomach dropped. Victoria’s smug smile faded, and she leaned heavily on the table. “Both Guardians confirmed that captives and staff had been relocated from a handful of Silent Homes to the Yorkshire site.” She paused for a moment and fixed her stare on Emmanuel’s reflection in the glass table top. “I’m sorry, but those who had been captured during the Moscow raid were amongst the prisoners who were taken to Yorkshire this morning.”
Chapter Six
“Bullshit!” Sam’s chair flew backward and clattered across the polished floor. “That’s total bullshit. No low-level Guardian on security detail at an empty Silent Home would have that information. They wouldn’t know which prisoners were being brought where. How could they know that?” Sam’s tone practically begged Emmanuel to agree with him and tell him that Victoria was full of crap. Our friends couldn’t be in that Silent Home in Yorkshire because there was nothing left in that place except death and darkness.
Emmanuel’s cheeks looked hollow. He stood up and attempted to approach Sam in the center of the floor. “Samuel, none of us want to believe this is true—”
Sam burst past Emmanuel before he could finish his sentence and wrenched the door of the conference room open. Emmanuel pressed his fist against his forehead. Lucas hadn’t moved since Victoria had spoken, and his face had taken on the white, waxy appearance of a mannequin. I stared from Lucas to Sam’s retreating back. Cain put his arm around Lucas’s shoulder and began to talk quietly into his ear.
Gabriel nodded in the direction of the door, and I turned on my heel to follow Sam. He was halfway down the corridor by the time I heaved the door open. “Sam.”
His footsteps slowed, and my heart twisted and contorted in my chest at the sight of his hunched shoulders. As he turned to face me, I considered fleeing back inside the conference room, unable to master the storm of emotions whirling in my stomach. Sam’s head fell forward as if the weight of his sadness was too heavy to bear. He opened his clenched and held his arm out toward me. “Grace.”
His voice pierced my skin, and my armor cracked, leaving me utterly defenseless. My pace quickened with each step I took, I needed to pull him into my arms and share his sorrow in a way that only a physical connection could. Sam pulled me into his arms and buried his face in the space between my shoulder and neck that felt as though it had been molded to fit only him. His lips were close enough to touch the skin on my throat, and I shivered as he ran his hands over my arms and lifted them, so they wound around his body. My fingers brushed the hair covering the nape of his neck, and tilted his head to face me with pupils are large and black as the night sky. Warmth flooded my body.
“Grace, I’m—” Sam’s stare flew from my face to the door opening behind me.
“Children.” Victoria’s voice echoed along the sleek corridor. I crushed my lips to
gether and turned to face her. “Children, I’m afraid I wasn’t finished. It’s important.”
Victoria shot me a pleading glance and held the door wide open. The sensation of coldness blasted against my back, and I clenched my teeth without bothering to look behind me. Sam was already gone.
I followed Victoria back inside.
Whatever conversation was going on in the conference room, it ended soon as I reappeared. Lucas and Megan were huddled together at the corner of the table. I returned to my place at the table and perched on the edge of my chair. “What?”
“We’re being manipulated and emotionally blackmailed, that’s what!” Lizzie’s blonde waves swung wildly about her face as she stared around the table. “It is. That is precisely what Niamh’s doing. She has information that could help us, but she refuses to share it with us unless we give her what she wants.”
The weasel-faced Master shrugged his shoulders. “There is always a price for information. If you think it’s too high, then we’ll have to live without the information. If you believe that sheltering the Demon-Born is more important than the lives of other Shadow Children…"
Camille raised her voice to be heard from the other side of the table. Her sweet voice had a hard edge. “Nobody suggested the Demon-Born were more important than other Shadow Children. They are equal in every way to the other children we protect. I have two sons, one with Angelic blood, one with the blood of a Demon-Born—there is no difference between them in my eyes.”
Lizzie nodded at Lucas’s mother. “Thank you, Camille. That’s normal—”
“But they’re not normal, are they?” William looked around the table for support, and I squirmed in my chairs as a few of the Masters met his eye. “They’re not natural. A Halfborn child is one thing, the union of a Human and an Angel is forbidden only by law, not by nature. The Demon-Born children are the product of an unnatural union. Who knows what dark magic these Spirit Eater Brothers used to draw the power of the Spirit Demons into them and reproduce? The Spirit Demons themselves are still a mystery to us, even after more than two thousand years—how can we know the evil that lurks inside the Spirit Demons has not been reborn in these children? Can we trust they aren’t leading us to our doom?”
The Shadow City (The Demon-Born Trilogy Book 2) Page 4