The shooter curls back his upper lip even more and snarls. "Shut up. I'd have hit her if she hadn't moved so fast, and if you hadn't grabbed me."
I realize in an instant what happened. The shooter tried to take me out from behind, but his companion tried to stop him for fear of hitting Ida and, in so doing, knocked the shooter's aim off enough that his bullet would have struck her. Ironic. But thankfully, my horrid ability still works.
As that thought crosses my mind, in my peripheral vision I see Glenn and Ida already leaping through the air, weapons out. The shooter swings his barrel around, or rather, he tries to. I don't have any visions about him hitting my approaching friends. As they rush into battle, Ida shrieks her battle cry, a banshee's wail that invariably startles her enemy. Our attackers freeze up for half a moment.
It's not long, but it's more time than she and Glenn need, and the shooter goes down with a dagger sticking up from the junction where his shoulder and neck meet.
The surviving attackers lose their shock and, enraged, move toward Glenn and Ida like a surging wave. Our odds have now evened up considerably, however.
I draw two of my fighting knives as I climb stiffly to my feet to wade into the melee. The morons brought guns to a knife fight. At these ranges, the knives are deadlier.
Wait. I can't see Luka. Where's Luka? I search frantically. A shadow crosses over me, and by reflex, I look up to find him stepping into view, putting himself between me and the two attackers coming toward me, Glenn, and Ida.
Fear rises inside me. Luka is in no shape to take on two of our kind at once. Heck, I doubt he could deal with two Mortals, right now.
Frantic, I step forward to lunge my blades at the attackers, but I'm too late. My blow will land after theirs, and I couldn't have stopped them both with one blow even if my timing were better. Luka is on his own, and although he has a knife in his hand... as slow as he is...
He looks over his shoulder at me, smiling—I think he's trying to reassure me—and while his face is still haggard and gray, I see a spark in his eyes I haven't seen since... well, since he died. For the briefest of moments, the rest of the world falls away to leave only the two of us, looking into each other's eyes.
And then Luka is gone.
I blink, startled, but then I see him. Or rather, I see the whirl of colors the master fighter has become, moving impossibly fast. For one second, that blur darts in and out between the two approaching Shades and then, like a speeding cartoon character that comes to a stop, he reappears where he had been standing. He moved so fast, I don't understand...
But I do understand the blood on his knives. It drips from his arms to his hands, his hands to his blades, the blades to the pavement. The crimson streams pour from him as his two victims look down in disbelief, then up at me and Luka. One holds his hand out toward us as though asking for help, while the other glares at us, but both are too busy dying to speak before they hit the pavement. When they strike, one's firearm skitters across the alleyway, but Luka doesn't make any move to retrieve it. He has his knives, and clearly, they work fine.
"I... That was interesting," I stammer.
He turns to look at me, but as soon as I see his face, I gasp and cover my mouth with my hands.
"What?" The corners of his mouth turn upward just a little as he eyes me with a twinkle.
As I watch, the saggy, graying flesh on his face and neck pinks up and tightens. A dozen red spots, precursors to the necrosis he so gruesomely cuts out, fade away.
Before I can gather my wits enough to respond, I see the two Shades he killed. They both look like ancient mummies, with thick, dry, shrunken skin and wispy tendrils of hair remaining. It's like their corpses aged, and—
It hits me what happened, what I'm looking at, and I hear a faint shriek that could be coming from me. No, it's definitely coming from me. I look up at the fighting going on around me, in a daze that seems to match the expressions on almost everyone else's face, friends and attackers alike.
Except Luka. His expression matches the one I had when I cracked my femur about five years ago, when the hospital pumped me full of pain-killers—glossy-eyed, euphoric, and totally cut off from the reality of what's going on around him.
"My god," Glenn says as he covers his mouth with one hand. "He's never looked better."
He's right, though the Luka I knew and loved would have seen what's going on and ran himself through the heart with his own knife, not stood to enjoy the feeling. Wouldn't he?
But no, that Luka, my first real love, was murdered and then resurrected from the dead. This Luka... "He must be drawing their energy into himself to fill the void left by his own soul, wherever it went."
Ida states another painful but obvious truth. "From the expression on his face, I'd say he doesn't intend to stop anytime soon. Everyone, meet Luka the serial killer."
Dammit.
Chapter 3
An hour later, we're eating take-out in our hideout. Glenn and Ida are really the only ones who can go get food and supplies without drawing attention, so it's good they're sticking around. Honestly, I need the company.
Glenn says, "I'm sure you could talk to Birka, too. She has at least as much at stake as you do, because of Talon."
"I wish it were true, but you and Ida are the only people I can talk to about the things on my mind. Talon is gone, Luka is some sort of revenant now, and Birka's only focus is on her son." I manage a wan smile.
Ida looks down at her hands, wrangling her fingers together. "Even though our situation is dire, and I expect Dawson's security forces to come through the door at any moment, the worst part is what happened to Talon."
How right she is. "The idea that he's being slowly drained of life to create Dawson's zombie squad, or whatever, is hell on me. He'd never want to be used that way, not even to save his own life—but he was willing to do it to save mine."
Glenn picks at his Szechuan beef. "Would you rather he left you to die and saved himself?"
"Absolutely. Especially with what we've learned about Luka."
Luka walks into the kitchen where we're gathered, just then. "Don't stop talking about me just 'cause I'm here," he says with a smirk. His face is still pink with life, his skin glowing like a pregnant woman's, thanks to the earlier kill. So handsome... and frightening.
Glenn laughs nonchalantly. "I don't mind saying it to your face. You aren't exactly yourself, lately. It's a bit of a concern, not just for our own safety, but for your soul."
Hastily, I cut in to say, "We're worried about you. And Talon and all the Revenants he must be making. It seems you have to kill just to stay alive."
Luka looks at me and his eyes, for a brief moment, remind me of a snake's right before it strikes at the bird on all those nature shows. But a moment later, he's back to smiling, eyes lighting up. "I'm glad you all are so worried about me. But you don't have to be afraid. I have more people who need killing than I have time to kill them in. I'll be fine, and so will all of you. At least, I won't be the one to hurt you."
With that, he spins on his heels and walks back into the living room, humming under his breath.
Glenn, Ida, and I stare at one another.
I break the silence. "His bizarre behavior shift is just one more huge concern we need to deal with and have no idea how."
Ida puts her hand on my shoulder and squeezes. "It's overwhelming, in the big picture. I think we should focus on something smaller, something manageable."
I close my eyes and settle my thoughts. Slowly, a picture of what must be done becomes clearer. "Right. Let's start with the thing that is most urgent, most important, and probably easiest to deal with."
"Which is?"
I open my eyes and look at her. "We have to free Talon. The longer he stays their prisoner, the more revenants Luna will coerce him into making, the harder everything gets, and the more Talon's going to die a little inside. What they have him doing is madness, and I think he'd rather take a sword blow to his neck than keep doing it."
>
"Agreed." Glenn looks at us each in turn. "We'll have more information when Meredith shows up—she'll have ideas on where to start our preparations."
Our little circle breaks up, then, but I leave it feeling a little better. Having something to focus on makes it a lot easier to clear my mind of all the other traffic up there, and silencing a dozen fearful voices is a sudden, welcome relief.
Chapter 4
I'm awakened by knocking on the door of our new, improved earthly hideout. Everyone else is looking around, blinking away sleep and powering up their Gifts, just like me. "No one dies," I manage to say, my voice rough from sleep.
Glenn rises and pads to the door to look through the peephole. "It's the princess."
"Open the damn door," Birka snaps.
When he pulls it open halfway, Meredith rushes in and shivers as she takes off her coat. "Sorry I'm so early, but I have duties later that I can't get out of."
Birka stands and stretches. "It's okay, dear. The world doesn't stop turning for us, though I wish it would. We're all hoping you have more information."
Meredith sits on the couch, heedless of its shabby condition, though I half expected her to put down a handkerchief or something first. "I've been working hard to find any information on what Dawson is up to. I'm drained from using my little Gift, and my day is just starting. My search raises more questions than answers, though."
I make a circular motion with my hand. "And?"
"First up. You must all be careful when you're outside. Yesterday, a bomb exploded at an elementary school. Someone called in a threat, so they'd cleared out the school and no one was hurt, thankfully. But somehow, he has put all of you on the terrorist list and every federal, state, and local agency is looking for you all as the terrorists behind the bomb."
"That's ridiculous," I blurt, but even as I say it, I know it's not. "Oh. He's using his position as the whisper behind the throne to get the mortals to deal with us."
Meredith nods. "I doubt they'll catch you, of course, but it hinders any plans you might come up with."
"He can't do that.” I spit the words, knowing they’re false.
Birka cuts me off, chopping her hand through the air. "He can and has. It's done. What else? What of Talon? What is Dawson planning?"
Meredith looks away, pursing her lips.
My stomach sinks and my heart rises up into my throat. "He's not... dead?"
She shakes her head, a startled expression on her face. "No, of course not. Not yet. Dawson still needs him to raise more like Luka."
"Revenants, we're calling them."
She pauses, then nods. "Yes, a good term for them. But Talon can apparently only raise one person each day before going critical. For whatever reason, that's not fast enough for Dawson and Luna, so she paid for all sorts of medical and laboratory equipment. My contact smuggled a picture of the lab and I can't make heads or tails of it."
Birka snorts. "He thinks he can analyze and reproduce the energy of our magic. If he could do that, he could raise an army overnight. It'll never work, though."
I'm not so sure. "Why won't it work? And if he copies one Gift, what's to stop him from copying others?"
Meredith replies, "No, he isn't trying to use the energy as a magic power. He just wants to harvest the energy for his resurrection machine, and other Gifts won't work for that."
Birka nods. "Besides, we've been trying to do that for decades and never got anywhere. But Dawson's use... That could be possible, with Talon’s magic to channel the energy. We need to stop him before he does it, and before he drains Talon to death."
Something isn't making sense to me, though. "But why does he need an army? He has a special ops revenant team already. He took over the Shades and Wraiths, too. Why an army? And why hasn't Luna already killed him and taken over?"
Luka smirks at me. "That's a lot of questions."
"Important ones, though."
Glenn yawns, then says, "That's the big question. What does he need a revenant army for?"
"We can make some educated guesses.” Meredith starts ticking them off on her fingers. “It isn't to conquer Mortals Landing or Hollows Ground—he has both of those already. It isn't for some kind of elite, off-the-books SpecOps team, for the same reason. It means he still has ambitions. But what's left, now that he controls all of our kind?"
Birka slams her fist on the coffee table. "Luna is whispering in his ear, and she's a worse version of her father. The Shades always wanted to take over the mortal world. It's the only reason we beat them to it. We don't want that responsibility, but we can't let the Shades have it. Couldn't..."
"But he already controls the President of the United States. What more could he want?"
Birka frowns at me. "Dear, I hate to tell you this, but ambitious people are never satisfied with what they have. That can be a good thing, but it can also be terribly dangerous. What's left to take, you ask? I think he wants his name on the door to the Oval Office. And after that, he'll want more. And more."
"The world would stop him, wouldn't it?" I'm not as certain as I wish I were. He won’t do it through some World War Three scenario, but from the shadows he’s so comfortable operating in.
"Not necessarily. With the U.S. at his feet, he could certainly take more, and don't forget that we Wraiths have agents in influential positions all over the world, not just in America."
A startling thought crosses my mind, then. "Meredith, you have to kill him. You can get close enough to do it. When do you meet with him again?"
"No."
"What?" I blink a couple times, surprised.
Meredith shakes her head, frowning. "I'm not a killer. I'll defend myself, but I leave the murdering to others. Besides, his security is too tight. It'd be a suicide mission, and I'm not getting myself killed over this."
Birka cuts off my rebuttal. "It's fine, dear. We'll find another way. As a princess in Europe, you have far more value than as a sacrificial gunman anyway. I'll hear no more of this idea."
Frustrated, I bite my tongue. Birka seems to think she's still the queen, but since the others are following her orders out of habit, I suppose she still is. "Well, if he has an army of Shades and Wraiths, and an army of mortals, what army do we get? We have to figure that out, and fast."
Luka speaks up, then, coming over to me and putting his hand on my arm. "Ella, we don't need an army. We have you, and that's a stronger weapon than any army, if used right. The first thing we have to do is go after Talon, not build an army."
Ida adds, "And we'll do all we can to save your parents while we're at it, Ella."
They're all looking at me, and all I can do is nod. I don't have a better idea, after all. "All we need to do is figure out where he is and how long we have to save him. No big deal."
Chapter 5
I stare at the whiteboard I've set up in the kitchen, with all its little notes we've written, clues as to Talon's whereabouts and when he's due to die. "The alarm I'd previously heard has come and gone."
Ida, beside me, nods. "But thankfully, Talon still lives, according to Meredith."
"True. But no one knows what the alarm from my vision could be, now. With glimpses I've had of his death, details from the guardian I touched in the restaurant, and intelligence we got from Meredith—"
"And from our own searching since Mortals Landing fell."
"—We ought to be able to figure this out," I finish.
Luka strolls into the kitchen. "Good morning, two of my favorite living beings in the world. Any luck?"
I glare at him. "If we had, I'd have already told everyone."
He walks up to the whiteboard and his eyes click back and forth as he takes it in. His wandering eyes stop unexpectedly on a number I wrote in blue with a few lines between it and a couple other visions I've also had recently.
Before he can ask, I say, "We don't know what that is. I've seen this number twice now, both in visions. I didn't think it was important the first time, but then it showed up again
. It has to be important, but I can't figure out what it is."
"A date, maybe?" he says.
"Hardly. It looks like an IP address, but there are too many digits, too many periods in it. Unless you know what it is, we have to focus on our other clues to figure out when Talon will die, and where."
"If you don't figure it out soon, we're going to have to just go raid Dawson's offices and take him hostage. Or die trying." Luka grabs a box of Frosted Mini-Wheats cereal off the counter, and then heads for the living room as he stuffs dry cereal straight from the box into his mouth.
Ida and I both stare after him for a moment. Almost under my breath, I tell her, "He seemed so casual about it."
"I don't know what to make of that, but we'd better keep an eye on him," Ida replies.
I couldn't agree more.
Just before lunch, Glenn comes back, his arrival announced by an enchanted light bulb above the door flashing three times. It’s a new addition.
For once, he's right on time. I smile and start to make a joke to that effect, but one look at him stops me in my tracks, mouth still open. His face and shirt are a bloody mess from a large, disgusting gash on the left side of his face. The cut runs from his cheek to his lip, flayed open. Whatever cut him was scalpel-sharp, too.
Ida lunges toward him from her seat, her voice high-strung and cracking as she bombards him with questions about what happened. Luka calmly puts one arm around her shoulders and backs her away just enough for Birka to get in to take a look at the wound.
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