Darkness Undone: A Novel of the Marked Souls
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Praise for the Novels of Jessa Slade
Vowed in Shadows
“Vowed in Shadows took me on a dark and sexy and intense ride with two complex, compelling characters.”
—New York Times bestselling author Nalini Singh
“If you like your stories filled with action and romance, plus about two wounded souls, then this is a series for you. This series is wonderful; it has everything you could want to read about.”
—Night Owl Reviews (top pick)
“A solid entry in what is sure to become a classic series in the genre.”
—Fresh Fiction
“Slade’s characters are extremely well-developed, with boundless emotional depth. In this third Marked Souls novel, the story line is gripping, with plenty of sensual scenes.”
—Romantic Times
Forged of Shadows
“Dark, dangerous, and spiced with passion, this is a well-written tale that will grab your attention from the very beginning.”
—Romance Reviews Today
“The wordplay is riveting and the story line is fast and action-packed.”
—Smexy Books Romance Reviews
“The only thing I can say about this series is WOW!!! Ms. Slade brings the fight against evil from the dark and into the light. This story is so exciting and action-packed that I had a hard time putting it down. I ended up reading it in one night. I can’t wait to see what comes next for this great new romantic urban fantasy series.”
—Night Owl Reviews (five stars)
“[A] heady mix of philosophy and religion … serves as part of the framework for this excellent series and sets it apart from the pack. … Be first in line for book three, Vowed in Shadows.”
—Bitten by Books (5 tombstones)
“For readers who love J. R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood, the Marked Souls series will hit the spot.”
—Romantic Times (4 stars)
Seduced by Shadows
“Wonderfully addictive!”
—New York Times bestselling author Gena Showalter
“Slade’s debut presents a dark and dense supernatural conflict with high stakes in a world where demons and angels possess humans and use them as tools in the unending fight between heaven and hell … [a] rich crossover urban fantasy.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A beautiful and inventive new series start, with plenty of action and wonderful characters!”
—Errant Dreams Reviews
“A gripping, suspenseful story, with some hot romantic interactions thrown in for good measure.”
—San Francisco Book Review
“Seduced by Shadows blew me away … Slade creates a beyond-life-or-death struggle for love and redemption in a chilling, complex, and utterly believable world.”
—Jeri Smith-Ready, award-winning author of Wicked Game
Also by Jessa Slade
Seduced by Shadows
Forged of Shadows
Vowed in Shadows
DARKNESS
UNDONE
A NOVEL OF THE MARKED SOULS
JESSA SLADE
SIGNET ECLIPSE
Published by New American Library, a division of
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First published by Signet Eclipse, an imprint of New American Library,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
First Printing, March 2012
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Copyright © Jessa Slade, 2012
All rights reserved
ISBN: 978-1-101-57685-4
SIGNET ECLIPSE and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.
If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
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To PopPop:
An engineer first, but an artist too. You gave me some good
material, genetics-wise, and some funny stories.
Miss you.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My editor, Kerry Donovan, and agent, Becca Stumpf, have been with me from Chapter 1 to glossary, from cover art first-glimpse squees to back cover copyedits. “Thank you” is only two words (can I say anything in two words?) and doesn’t even begin to capture my gratitude.
The entire team at NAL brings my books to life—and to bookshelves—and I can’t thank them enough, especially Jesse Feldman and Kayleigh Clark; copy editor Jane Steele (who had to put up with all my beloved sentence fragments); and Gene Mollica and Adam Auerbach, who put a chest (if not a face) on my sexy hero.
Mwahs to my cheerleading beta reader, Delilah Marvelle, whose energy in her writing and in her life inspires me endlessly.
As I write this, Book Blogger Appreciation Week is coming to a close, but I want to give them a shout-out here too, considering how their delight in and ardent support of romance has contributed substantially to my to-be-read mountain. Extra special thanks to Bitten by Books, Night Owl Reviews, Errant Dreams Reviews, Romance Reviews Today, and Smexy Books Romance Reviews.
All families put up with craziness in their loved ones, but maybe writers’ families sigh more deeply, with a little extra angst. To my family and Scott, much, much thanks and love, love, love.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
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Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Epilogue
Glossary of Terms
Vowed in Shadows
Dear new Bookkeeper,
Sucks to be you.
You’re probably flipping through these mostly blank pages where the notes for the last year should be, wondering why the archives of the Chicago league of demon-possessed male talya warriors haven’t been updated lately. Honestly, as the temp secretary, I’ve been superbusy. Mostly doing my nails.
Hey, sharpened nails come in very handy against the lurking evil of the horde-tenebrae.
Besides, calfskin, goose quills, and illuminated letters went out a long time ago. You Bookkeepers should try Twitter.
So here’re the past eleven months—since the demonic possession of the first female in a couple thousand years (that’d be me) and the return of the mated symballein bond—condensed to 140 characters with gratuitous emoticons and random misspellings:
More evul than evuh WTF? Djinn-man wants to destroy the world (X_X) But wait! T&A + witty repartee = True Love Saves the Day! <333 The End …?
Well, that pretty much covers it. I can’t imagine you’ll have any more questions. Now that you’re here, I’ll be out slaying bad things. Don’t worry; just regular ol’ bad things—like ratty little malice, huge stinky ferales, and burning salambes—not insanely powerful, straight-up insane djinn-men like Corvus Valerius, who had the nerve to open a portal into hell before we vanquished him three months ago. No thanks to our former Bookkeeper who betrayed us and helped unleash the repentant demon that possessed me and started this whole damn mess. We won’t hold that against you, though. Really.
We know the ranks of Bookkeeping masters frown on us pulverizing tweaking the traditions the London league has upheld for centuries, but—did I mention?—sucks to be you. Welcome to Chicago.
Sera Littlejohn, Interim Bookkeeper
CHAPTER 1
To human senses, the Chicago night was dark and quiet—at least as dark and quiet as a big city could be. But Sidney Westerbrook knew, somewhere beyond the stark neon and the shouts with the flattened vowels that grated on his merely human eyes and ears, the streets seethed with demonic fury.
And after coming nearly four thousand miles, he wasn’t getting the chance to experience any of it.
Sid stuffed his hands to the bottom of his trouser pockets, as if he might find a last kilojoule of warmth down there. His father had warned him London’s fog had nothing on Chicago’s wind.
Then again, his father had warned him of quite a lot, only some of which had seemed relevant. Sid hunched his shoulders, and his gusty sigh bounced off the upturned collar of his tweed jacket, fogging his spectacles.
Who would’ve guessed the Chicago talyan would be such contrary blighters? All his Bookkeeper studies had prepared him for the same old, same old: immortal, menacing warriors with preternatural fighting skills and tortured demon-possessed souls, et cetera. But these upstart Yanks—from one of the secondary leagues, no less—had blown apart the theories of generations of Bookkeepers before him. Yet despite their obvious need for objective guidance, they wouldn’t give him, their emergency Bookkeeper, even the time of day.
No way in hell were they giving him their nights.
Though Sid didn’t have a talya’s enhanced vision, the flow of demonic ethers was clearly unsettled in Chicago. He’d hypothesized as much from the sharply refracted energy in every talya iris—purplish glints even an unschooled human would notice. The borderline morbid array of close-quarters weaponry had been another hint. But Liam Niall, the leader of the Chicago league, had refused to let Sid accompany them on patrol.
“It’s your first night in town,” he’d said. “Kick the jet lag. Then we’ll show you … everything, as London requested.”
Sid hadn’t needed enhanced hearing either, to pick up that disdainful pause. Most of the world’s major cities had @1 leagues since demonic activity tied into population density and the sorts of upheavals that regularly made the evening news. All the leagues were distinctly autonomous and fighting to hold their burden of darkness at bay. But London, having inherited the position from Rome in the days of expanding empires, held perhaps a “first among equals” distinction, though the other leagues might not readily concede. Probably didn’t help matters that Niall had been a victim of the Irish potato famine, which had its rotting roots in British agrarian politics.
That quarrel, in case anyone wanted to consult a calendar, had been dead and buried for a century and a half. Although obviously “dead” meant something different to immortals.
Sid crushed his fists down hard enough to turn pocket lint to felt. Just what he needed; another old man unwilling to let him in.
He dodged across the street, avoiding a cab that had run the red. He responded to the unwarranted honk with an appropriate American gesture. In some ways, cities were all the same. Certainly he could find common ground with these big, taciturn talya males and their three smaller but equally unnerving females. London might have loaned him to Chicago while his last journeyman Bookkeeper thesis was under review, but if he wanted to prove his mastery—if he wanted all the sacrifices to mean anything—exposing, exploring, and explaining some heretofore unknown talya secret would certainly do the trick.
And the Chicago league had secrets to burn.
He passed an iron stanchion supporting the elevated train, turned the next corner, and came face-to-face with … fangs.
A squeak of surprise squeezed from his chest.
When his thinking forebrain caught up with his hindbrain, he winced at his instinctive reaction. The rubber monster mask in the shop window wasn’t coming for his jugular.
He let out a slow breath, calming the rush of his pulse. He straightened his spectacles and leaned closer to the window. The molded tusks were coated in frightfully realistic gore as if they’d just emerged from someone’s thorax. He’d forgotten All Hallows’ Eve was less than a fortnight away. Not that the demonic tenebrae scheduled holidays.
He walked on, suddenly thankful he was alone tonight. If the talyan had witnessed that squeak, he’d never earn their respect.
But there was no one around.
No one at all.
His heel scuffed the pavement as his steps slowed. The soft scrape repeated down the throat of the dank alley off to his right. He swallowed in disgust at the stench of stewed trash. Really, that costume shop should try bottling the stink for a gag gift—emphasis on gag.
He peered back toward the intersection where the cab had almost sideswiped him. The red flash of brakes and illuminated crosswalk signs blinked with ordinary, reassuring liveliness, but in that moment, bustling humanity seemed strangely far away.
Distance was good. Distance put things in perspective; letting Niall’s snub provoke him had been stupid. Well, he’d blame the jet lag and be his own composed Bookkeeper self on the morrow.
Before he could take another step, a disfigured shadow charged out of the alley toward him in a blur of grizzled fur and scabrous gray skin.
Pinched together on a ratlike head, the feralis’s bulbous eyes raged with an unholy orange flame. Its tapered jaws gaped wide to expose finger-length incisors. Curiously, the fangs looked sharper on the rubber version. …
Sid stumbled back. Adrenaline soaked through him in a hot wash like thin, bitter coffee.
Told you so, said his hindbrain.
He turned to run, but the feralis sprang at him, fiendishly quick on its clawed feet. Its jaws sank into his left shoulder. The shock was literal as well as academic when the teeth sliced through the heavy wool tweed of his coat, into muscle, and—judging by the unpleasant grinding noise—all the way through to bone.
“Bloody hell!” Agony spiked above the adrenaline—the archives never footnoted how much a feralis bite hurt!—and his vision narrowed to brick and blood and darkness.
The feralis shook him once, twice, snapping his head back as if he were nothing more than a chew toy. His spectacles flew off—now the brick, blood, and darkness were blurry—and his spine twisted with a searing streak of pain.
He flailed with his free arm, and something damp crumpled under his fist. Had he smacked its rotting gums? Or its eyeball? His stomach heaved. The talyan never reported squeamishness. Was that a result of indifference or pride?
The rest of him heaved too as the feralis tossed him toward the alley. He hit the pavement and bounced. The brutal blow to his shoulder jolted the breath from him and condensed his vision to a single bloody point.
The red dot winked out. And reappeared. And multiplied to a hundred tiny glittering points. Malice eyes split the darkness like crimson open wounds, not fuzzy at all, despite his nearsightedness. The smoldering, oily smoke of a salambe threaded past the crimson like an evil party streamer.