by Amy Miles
Roseline sprints down a long hallway and nearly misses the turn. She pauses for a second to note the skid marks and then darts down a side hallway. How big is this place?
Up ahead she can hear the labored panting of the hound, but there is something more. She can smell terror weaving down the air-conditioned halls and it’s human.
Roseline’s boots thunder against the concrete floor as she braces and slams through the door with her shoulder, hard enough to jar her teeth. The stench of death is overwhelming in the small space.
The only light in the supply closet comes from a naked light bulb dangling from the ceiling and a glowing red exit sign above a door that appears to be blocked. Several shapes frantically toss boxes aside while others stand guard, facing off with the hound. William is in front, his arms thrown out to protect the girls while the bouncers scurry to uncover the door.
“William!” He glances over the beast’s shoulders at her and looks faint with relief. “Don’t move. I’m coming for you!”
The hulking animal turns at the sound of her voice and emits what she can only imagine to be a whimper.
Is it trying to hurt the humans or is it fleeing from me? She ponders as she kicks at the stack of boxes separating them. Styrofoam cups and napkins spill from the boxes, the tape exploding off the seal as they slam into the wall. The hound dips low, a growl escaping between its bloody lips.
“William, I need you to get the girls back.” She looks beyond him to the bouncers and realize they won’t be able to clear a path in time. “Everyone get back. I don’t want this thing crushing you.”
Pushing the girls back against the wall, William yells at the bouncers to follow suit. The instant they are clear, Roseline leaps.
The hound meets her in midair, its jaws snapping at her leg, but she lands safely on the other side, placing herself between the humans and the beast. It eyes her carefully, its tail tucked between its legs.
“Nice doggy,” she croons, lifting a hand to show that she is unarmed. Where is Gabriel?
She lowers her gaze for a split second to look down the hall toward the kitchen, and the monster attacks. Four-inch spiked teeth sink into the flesh of her shoulder and toss her aside. She can hear the girls’ screams echoing in her ears as she connects with the wall. Three bones snap along her right side and she grits her teeth against the cry rising in her throat.
Cradling her side, Roseline rises slowly.
“Rose?” William calls.
“I’m fine.” She tucks her wounded arm firmly into her side, wincing at the pain. This thing is going down!
As the hound turns to attack, Roseline snags a fistful of hair from its tail and yanks, slamming the dog into the wall. Blood and snot pour from its nose as it howls in pain. She stomps on its paw, driving her heel between tendons, twisting to sever the connective tissue.
It roars and gnashes its teeth. The claws of its hind legs dig deep into the floor, kicking aside boxes and making a terrible shrieking sound that makes her blood run cold. It’s calling for help, she realizes.
“William, back up!” She reprimands as she sees him approaching from behind. Squatting low, she flips over the ridgeline of the beasts back and lands upon its neck. She can feel tendon and muscles beneath her as she grips either side of its head and begins to twist.
She ignores the girls’ shrieks and William’s cries. She ignores the pounding of the humans’ frantic heartbeats in her ear. Nothing matters until this thing is gone.
With a mighty growl, Roseline wrenches her hands around and feels the beast’s spine snap like a tree branch. She releases the head with an exclamation of disgust and slides down off its back as it collapses beneath her.
Her chest rises and falls as she wipes her hands against her pants, sickened by the stench the dog has left on her. A hand falls upon her arm and she whips around, fist poised to strike, but halts less than an inch from William’s nose. His eyes widen with fright as he slowly turns his eyes to look at her. “Thanks for that.”
“For what?” she asks, dropping her arm. She winces as the skin stretches taut, tugging her new wounds. Warm blood vines down her arm, but she hardly notices.
“For not rearranging my face.”
She laughs and steps over the massive limp paw and pats him on the shoulder. “Next time, a little warning would be nice.”
“Got it.” He grins as he wraps his arm around her waist and helps her over to the door. The humans stare at her with wide-eyed awe. Roseline shifts on her feet, suddenly very uncomfortable in her skin.
“Why didn’t you leave?” she asks.
“The door is locked. Sean was trying to get the key out of his pocket, but that thing slammed through the door and everything fell in the way,” the blond waitress responds, never taking her eyes off Roseline.
She turns to William. “Go check on Gabriel. See what’s keeping him. He should have been here by now. I’ll take care of this.”
With a brief nod, William takes off at a jog, darting around the debris like a slalom skier. “You’d better turn away,” Roseline says.
She lifts her foot and slams it into the wood, just below the deadbolt lock. The door cracks and splinters right up the middle, falling off its hinges into two broken pieces. Hot, stifling air from the street pours in through the hole.
The bouncers are the first through the doorway. They turn back to assist the girls one at a time. The blonde turns back as Roseline raises a hand to inspect her shoulder, hissing at the black ichor that burns deep into her flesh like acid. “Look, I don’t know what you are, but I wanted you to know that what you did is really cool. You’re kinda like a superhero.”
Roseline smirks as the girl waves and escapes the building. “Never been called one of those before,” she says to the empty room.
ELEVEN
Even before Roseline winds her way back to the dance floor, she knows something is wrong. She can smell it on the air: fear. It filters down the hall with a nearly visible fog of despair.
She breaks out into a sprint. Just before Roseline reaches the kitchen, strong arms lasso around her waist and pull her back. “Let me go!”
“Rose, calm down,” Gabriel whispers in her ear, and all the fight goes out of her. She should have known it was him. No one else could have restrained her so easily. She turns to look at him and feels the blood rush from her face.
Gabriel’s eyelids are drooped low, his gaze unfocused. He is ashen and sickly, as if he is about to be ill all over the floor.
“Who is it?” she croaks, clinging to him for support.
He looks away and swallows hard. “Nicolae.”
A low moan rises from her throat as she shoves out of his arms and dashes into the nightclub. There is blood and mangled body parts everywhere. She can’t help but think of Vladimir and Lucien when she stares across the vast, nearly empty room of carnage.
Then she spots Sadie, her shoulders hunched over a still figure. Roseline is at her side in two great bounds. She kneels beside her friend, resting her arm over her shoulders as Sadie sobs.
Nicolae’s chest is a wash of crimson. His leather vest has been shredded nearly completely from his body. His broad chest has been torn into ribbons of flesh and muscle, the claw marks deep enough to see bone.
Roseline fights to still the trembling in her hands as she stares down into his lifeless eyes. “How long has he been gone?”
Sadie wipes her nose with the back of her hand. Her voice comes out in a pained whisper. “Only a few seconds. He just… he tried to say something, but his vocal cords are… are…” She collapses into a fit of sobs. She doesn’t need to state the obvious. There is little left of Nicolae’s throat.
“I couldn’t…” She wheezes. “I couldn’t save him.”
Roseline looks up to find Gabriel lingering a few feet back. “Get her out of here.”
“No!” Sadie’s head whips up and Roseline can see what leaving Nicolae’s side would cost her.
Roseline doesn’t have time to
argue. She shoves Sadie toward Gabriel and tries to focus as her friend’s shrieks of protest begin to fade. William will be able to console her, she tries to tell herself as she leans over Nicolae.
“I’m not going to let you die that easily.” With the tips of her hair brushing against his wounds, Roseline reaches across him and closes her hand around his dagger. It feels cold, foreign in her hand as she runs the blade deep across her palm.
The skin peels back and blood flows freely. Roseline thrusts her hand deep into Nicolae’s stomach, letting her blood seep directly into his body. Only a few seconds, she repeats over and over to herself as she squeezes her arm to push as much blood out as she can, praying it’s not too late to bring him back.
When a lightheaded haze wafts over her, she pulls back and lifts her arm to help slow the flow. A long-forgotten language spills from her lips, a mixture of Latin, Gaelic, and Egyptian rolls off her tongue. The words rise and fall in intensity as she places her hand over Nicolae’s heart and begins compressions to get the blood flowing.
Unlike her own death, Nicolae didn’t have the chance to taste blood before his heart stopped. Even Gabriel was turned mere seconds before his heart stopped beating. She has no idea if this will work, only that she has to try.
“Come on.” She grunts, massaging a bloody trail down his arms and legs, trying to manually force the blood to spread.
Her song ends and she begins again. The shadows seem to crawl forth from the walls, surrounding her in near darkness. Roseline has always been terrified of using such dark magic. Now, knowing that Lucien is the one who created it, she is even more leery of using it, but Nicolae is worth fighting for.
She watches for any sign of life. A beat of his heart, a twitch of his finger, a flutter of an eye. She works on him for what feels like an eternity before she sinks back and wraps her arms about her knees. She lowers her head as tears spill from her eyes, curling down her cheeks to patter against her knees.
A footstep behind her alerts her to a presence. “It didn’t work,” she whispers.
“That is because you are no longer a child of the shadows,” a strange voice calls from behind her.
Roseline leaps to her feet, crouching low for an attack that never comes. When she lifts her gaze to the towering man standing before her, she wipes her tears away and rises. “Ashir.”
The great giant smiles. “You did not think we would come?”
Her breath catches. “We?”
His teeth seem to shine with the light of the sun as he grins. “Elias is here too.”
Despite having just lost a dear friend, Roseline takes a small amount of comfort in knowing Gabriel’s mentor is here. But just as swiftly as that relief comes, it is tainted by something darker. “These hounds that attacked us… they breached the gap between our worlds, didn’t they?”
“Yes,” Ashir says, folding his wings tightly behind his back as he approaches. His long steps carry him to her side with amazing grace, despite the body-strewn path between them.
“Are they the ones who have been killing our men?”
He nods. “Among other things. These beasts are from the Shadow Lands. The in-between world where darkness has reign. I warned you the war was coming.”
Roseline nods and swipes her hand across her forehead to shove a matted clump of hair out of her eye. The trail of blood that paints her forehead gives her reason to pause. She glances back at Nicolae and feels her throat clamp off.
Ashir places a hand upon her shoulder. It feels solid, warm, and filled with life. “Can you heal him?”
She feels a tiny tremble in his hand and looks up into his eyes, realizing with a start there is a glow building behind his irises. It is not blue, like she has seen emit from Gabriel, but something infinitely brighter and far more beautiful. It reminds her of the sea, crystal in clarity and depthless in beauty.
His ebony hand begins to warm against her shoulder, but she doesn’t pull away. It doesn’t burn or scald. It has a distinctive comforting quality that she can’t quite place her finger on.
The warmth seeps into her shoulder and she gasps, realizing that the claw wounds in her flesh have sealed over. The warmth travels through her with terrifying speed, healing every sore muscle, cracked rib, or wound it comes in contact with.
She gasps as he pulls away, staring up at him in sheer awe. “What was that?”
Ashir smiles. “It is called Baliem Alorak. In your common tongue, that means angel magic.”
“But I’m not—”
Ashir silences her as he raises his hand. “You are. You all are. Angel blood runs in your veins, Roseline Marston.” She inhales at the use of Gabriel’s surname. “Lucien’s magic didn’t just taint your blood. It inserted darkness into your soul, like a poison. Some give in to their cravings and all light is lost, but some, like yourself, fight it.”
Roseline lowers her gaze. “I was evil once. I killed for the pleasure of it.”
Ashir gently lifts her chin, forcing her to meet his soft gaze. “And you changed, didn’t you?”
She nods with great reluctance. That is a part of her life that she tries very hard not to think upon. The years when she became exactly who Vladimir wanted most. A killer. A murderer. A savage… And she liked it.
“That proves that you were never truly lost.” He places two hands upon her shoulders. “I do not possess the ability to remove the enchantments that created you, but I can tip the balance enough to save your friend.”
Roseline glances down at Nicolae. “You can save him?”
“No.” She lifts her gaze to watch as Ashir moves away. “You can.”
Roseline wraps a cloth about her wrist, staunching the blood flow from the bite marks where she buried her teeth deep into an artery. The sting has already begun to fade. She doesn’t care about the pain.
The sound of Nicolae’s fluttering heart is like the finest music. He will live, she thinks wearily as she sinks back onto her heels.
She is weak from the blood loss, weary from the battle, yet there is an unusual energy bursting through her. She rises to her feet and looks about her. So much senseless death.
Ashir had said that without Lucien alive to keep the Shadow Lands in control, this would happen. Fallen Ones scrambling over each other to gain power. Who will be next to take Lucien’s spot in the world? Malachi surely would have been groomed for that position, but he is long gone.
Lucien never spoke of another, but then again, he didn’t speak about a great many things to her. Her stomach clenches painfully as she remembers him saying she would rule at his side. A tremor begins in her fingers and worms its way up through her forearm and into her shoulder. She clutches her arms tightly to her stomach and doubles over. I was meant to lead next.
She can’t help but wonder if Ashir is right. Is there enough good in her to keep the evil at bay?
The Arotas prophecy joined Roseline and Gabriel together, forged an unbreakable bond, but Ashir said the prophecy isn’t done with them yet. Does that mean they haven’t completed their task or that there was never meant to be an end?
Gabriel is a guardian, gifted with extraordinary abilities that even Roseline struggles to understand. What is she but a sick, perverted use of black magic?
You are an angel of light too, she reminds herself as she leans back. You made a choice to live for good. So do it. Fight back!
The humans know that her kind exist now, even if they may not label it correctly or ever truly understand. Perhaps one day they will be able to live in harmony with each other, once the myths have been dispelled and they see that they have nothing to fear from her kind.
If the hunters and immortals can coexist, is it really so much to hope that humans can one day accept them too?
Roseline sinks back and releases a weighted sigh. Her hands tremble as she clenches them tightly together. She is bone weary from the events of tonight, but she knows this is only the beginning. The battle has come to her doorstep. They will regroup tonight at the castle
and then split into teams to track down those creatures who have killed her friends, her family.
This isn’t over.
Her head whips around as the door at the top of the stairs bursts open and Gabriel appears. Roseline’s stomach clenches in terror. He is covered in blood from head to foot, but she can’t tell if it is his or not.
She sprints toward the stairs and leaps, landing halfway up. “What’s happened?”
“These were just the scouts.” Gabriel’s face is grim but his gaze steady as he looks toward the lifeless figure of the tawny hound that he killed. “We’re under attack.”
Roseline is instantly at his side, pushing to get past him. “Then we have to get back to the castle. Claudia will need our help.”
Gabriel latches onto her arm and shakes his head. “They’re not attacking the castle,” he says. He looks pained as his gaze shifts, unfocused. She has seen this look before, when men have seen unspeakable horrors. When he looks back at her, his face is pallid but his jaw clenched with determination. “They are attacking Brasov.”
Ashir warned that a war was coming. She had prayed that it would not be quite so soon, but there is no turning back now. No brushing this under the rug and pretending all is well with the world. If anything, the world appears to be worse off without Lucien, and that is a thing she never thought she would say.
She will fight tonight and many nights to come. She knows this with every ounce of her being. It is what she was created to do, trained for. Roseline is a warrior. That will never change.
Roseline grips his hand and races onto the street, ready to take on whatever the Shadow Lands might throw at them. As long as she is with Gabriel, she knows she can defeat anything.
THE END
COMING 2015
THE SHADOW LANDS SERIES
An Arotas spinoff series