Savior of Midnight

by Debbie Cassidy

  Savior of Midnight

  Chronicles of Midnight book 5

  Debbie Cassidy

  Copyright © 2018, Debbie Cassidy

  All Rights Reserved

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, duplicated, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Cover by Covers by Julie

  Chapter 1

  The delicious aroma of cinnamon greeted me as I took the steps down into the kitchen. Oleander must be making breakfast ... No, wait. It couldn’t be him because he was at the cliff house, and it wasn’t Orin because I’d just left him in the shower.

  Heart pounding in my chest like a drum, I stepped into the room to find Lucifer at the stove flipping golden discs and catching them expertly in Bane’s favorite skillet. He was making pancakes? But it wasn’t just the pancakes that had my breath catching; it was the floral apron that he’d tied around his waist—Bane’s apron.

  He turned at my approach, as if sensing my presence, and our gazes locked. For a moment he looked lost, confused, and then he smiled and there they were—fangs. Bane’s fucking fangs. Did he know he had them? Did he realize?

  He placed a plate of pancakes on the table. “Are you hungry?”

  I remained by the door, hand on the frame. “Have you always made pancakes?”

  He frowned. “Harker, do you want pancakes or not?”

  Stupid question, of course I wanted pancakes. But he hadn’t answered mine. “Lucifer?”

  He flinched and averted his gaze. “I wanted to cook this morning. I wanted to make pancakes ... for you.” The last part was a growl.

  Bane used to make me pancakes. “You have fangs ...”

  He reached up to touch his mouth and then ran his tongue down the elongated canines. The pulse at my throat jumped with a pang of desire, and his attention zeroed in on my neck.

  Silence, absolute in its intensity, fell over us. It stretched like taffy, growing thicker by the second until it begged to be broken. “What’s happening to you?”

  He tucked in his chin, his shoulders rising and falling. “I don’t know.” He tore off the apron, threw it onto the counter, and brushed past me. “Enjoy the pancakes.”

  Rivers entered a moment later. “I smell pancakes.”

  I gestured toward the plate piled high with deliciousness. “Lucifer made them.”

  His brows flicked up. “I guess that’s something he and Bane have in common.”

  I slowly shook my head and swallowed hard. “I think it’s more than that. He also has fangs now.”

  Rivers’s brows snapped down and his mouth parted slightly in comprehension. “You don’t think that he’s—”

  “Don’t.” I held up my hand. “Don’t say it. I can’t allow myself to even contemplate it. I don’t want to get my hopes up.”

  Rivers nodded sagely. “Fine, we’ll stick a pin in it for now. We have plenty to keep us busy in the meantime.” He eyed the pancakes almost wistfully. “We’ve let Xavier sweat for a day. I think it’s time we began our interrogation.”

  Did I really believe Xavier was a threat? No. But there was no way we’d let him parade around the mansion without making one hundred percent certain that we weren’t letting a mole into our den. For that we’d need information he may not give us if we just accepted his arrival at face value.

  I nodded. “Being locked up for a day and night should have softened him up enough to talk.”

  “He’s a general,” Rivers said. “If he doesn’t want to talk, then he won’t. We may have to resort to force.” His eyes flashed with lethal intent.

  Hell no. “Even if he hadn’t come to us willingly, that’s Drayton’s body you’re talking about torturing. So, no.”

  Rivers exhaled through his nose.

  I held up my hands. “Look, I don’t think he’s a threat, but I need to know why he really chose to help us, and why he came here of all places.”

  Rivers’s eyes narrowed. “You think Drayton’s pulling the strings, don’t you?”

  I blew out a breath. “I don’t know, but I intend to find out.” I sat down and picked up a fork. “Stop eyeing them up and grab a plate. We’ll eat first. Interrogation on an empty stomach is a bitch.”

  ***

  Xavier looked at me through Drayton’s eyes, and disconcertion was a live thing writhing in my stomach.

  “Why am I locked up?” he asked softly.

  I crouched outside his cell. “We just need to know a few things before we can let you out. Like why you came here?”

  He frowned. “There is nowhere else for me to go now.”

  He sounded sincere, like he actually believed what he was saying, but I’d been burned by pretty-faced liars before. There had to be another reason he’d come to us. “Bullshit. There are plenty of hidey-holes for you to squat in. Places where Asher won’t find you. Why come here?”

  He closed his eyes briefly. “Because you have wards. Because it’s safe here.”

  My pulse jumped, reminding me of the reason for the others’ disconcertion when it came to him being here. Our wards hadn’t been tripped by him. He’d simply walked in undetected. I had my suspicion as to how. Yeah, totally Drayton-related, but I needed him to confirm it. I needed him to admit something, the one thing that was a certainty in the depths of my mind.

  I gave him my best incredulous look. “Safe? For you? Really? You’re a shade and you come to the one place where the only weapon that can kill you resides?” I shook my head. “Bullshit.”

  He sat forward, eyes flashing. “You won’t kill me, Serenity, not just because killing me would kill Dayton, but also because you owe me and your sense of honor won’t let you hurt me.”

  “Wow, you really think you have me pegged, don’t you?”

  He made a sound of exasperation. “I helped you, and because of that my cover has been blown. Asher knows about the resistance now. He knows where my loyalties really lie. He will weed out the shades who side with me, and he will kill them if we don’t get them out. So, yes, I came here because it’s time for you to return the favor.”

  “We? There is no we. Not until you level with me.”

  “I am levelling with you.”

  Rivers coughed. I glanced up at him to see the telltale gleam in his eye, and for a split second, it was as if the Mind Reaper was looking back at me. A shiver skittered down my spine, and Rivers frowned. Crazy, I was being crazy. It was Rivers, just Rivers. I tore my gaze away, fixing it back onto Xavier. My intuition was rarely wrong; there was more he wasn’t telling me, but Xavier’s attention was on Rivers now, and his face drained of color.

  I snapped my fingers to get his attention. “Hey, Xavier, eyes on me.”

  He blinked and focused. “Look. I’m not the enemy. Not all shades are the same. We don’t all want the same thing.”

  Okay, now we were getting somewhere. “And what do you want, Xavier?”

  He seemed to consider the question, cocking his head slightly as if choosing his words. “When I first arrived in Midnight, I wanted vengeance. I wanted to make the winged pay for usurping our place. I wanted our creator to feel the pain of loss when we tore his new pets to shreds. Humans would die, Asher had warned. He explained how sacrifices were necessary for the good of th
e many. And I believed him. I believed that the end would justify the means. But the longer I spent here, in this body, the more I experienced this world and the more my doubt grew. I wasn’t the only shade to feel it. The massacre of humans and shades no longer feels like vengeance. It feels like a waste. And Asher’s goals have shifted. Power has gone to his head. Whereas before he was content to wipe out the winged and fall back into our role as protectors of humanity, now he feels that humanity is too corrupt to be saved. He wants to wipe them out too, and I just can’t allow that.”

  “Why? Why do you care so much about humanity?”

  Irritation flashed across his beautiful features. “Have you not been listening? Because humans were our charges. We were their guardians once.”

  Understanding the shades could be the key to bringing them down. Maybe there would be some nugget, some Achilles’ heel that we could use. “Tell us. Help us to understand.”

  He sighed and leaned his head back against the wall. His eyes fluttered closed. “It feels like a lifetime ago, and at the same time it could have been yesterday when we were born. He made us from shadow. From the darkness that cocooned his light. We were his first children, the very first, and he loved us. I know he did. We were his eyes and ears, his guardians, his assassins. We watched over each cycle of creation, and there were many. Some monstrous beyond description, some so beautiful they made me ache with longing in a way that made no sense to me.”

  “Other creations?” Ryker joined me on the ground. “Like animals?”

  Xavier chuckled. “Some could be likened to animals because they had no higher intelligence, but others were more than just sentient, they had the potential of great power. But our creator wasn’t satisfied. Time and time again, he purged the world of his creations, and we, his shades, would sweep over the world and drag the creatures to whatever prison he had created for them. Because, you see, he couldn’t bring himself to completely destroy his work. And so he kept his rejects locked up.” He tucked in his chin. “And he created man. We watched as this wondrous creature was brought to life with atoms of starlight and a breath of stolen grace, and he was so pleased with this new toy that he permitted us, his shades, to live amongst them, to walk in their wake. Over time, we became bonded to them. We became connected in a way that was almost intimate.”

  “Shadows ... you became their shadows,” Ryker said, his tone hushed in wonder.

  Was this why they could only access their host via shadows?

  Xavier nodded in Ryker’s direction. “Yes. It was a symbiotic relationship where we protected the host and the host allowed us to finally experience the wondrous world: taste, true sight and smell. It was then that we realized how much he had held back from us—the colors ... all the colors that our eyes could not see, and all the flavors that our tongues could not taste. We made the fatal error of asking why? Of asking to be reborn. Of asking to be human.”

  “He cast you out,” Ryker said. “Locked you away.”

  “Worse than that. He replaced us. He created the winged, and it was these new creations that tore us away from our humans and exiled us into an eternal prison. Betrayed.” He closed his eyes for a moment, as if the memory brought him pain. “We were betrayed. Our centuries of service were rewarded with a forever exile.”

  But if that was true, then how come the winged hadn’t said anything? I glanced across at Ryker’s thoughtful expression.

  “The winged didn’t seem to have any idea that you existed,” Ryker echoed my thoughts.

  Xavier snorted. “I’m not surprised. He would have wiped any memory of our existence from their minds, just as he wiped us from human memory. I do wonder why he allowed them to keep their shadows—these imprints we’d left behind, these residues of our existence. It makes me wonder if it was his love for us that made him sentimental.”

  Sentimental? Was he serious? Ryker, once again on the same frequency as me, asked the question hovering on my lips.

  “It seems a bit harsh. Why get rid of you just because you asked to be human? He could have just said no.”

  Xavier’s smile was wry. “Yes. I suppose he could have, but in the end, we were evidence of yet another failure—the creation that was dissatisfied with its existence. Our request probably reminded him that we were proof of all his previous failures. Locking us away, wiping memories, allowed him to start afresh with a clean slate.”

  “Arrogance and pride are obviously not just human traits,” Rivers said dryly.

  He was referring to God, but his statement could easily be applied to the winged too. They strutted about believing they were the first of God’s creation, believing they’d been humanity’s only guardians. Pride and arrogance. It was impossible not to feel sympathy for the shades, but it was a short burst of empathy, because the past, no matter how unfair it had been to them, didn’t excuse what they were doing to Midnight in the present.

  “I remember now,” Xavier said. “I remember what we were and what we stood for, and there are others who are like me. We wish to protect humanity, to live not inside them but alongside them. Live like we once did. Asher only wants power. He wants to rule, and I won’t lie, there are shades who feel the same. There are many that agree with him, but the majority are either unaware of his real agenda, too afraid to act, or in league with the resistance.” He leaned forward. “You have to help me liberate them. They don’t deserve to be used as cannon fodder in a fight no one will win.”

  The spider-shade who could have killed me came to mind. He’d stopped and waited for me to end him. He’d wanted to be free. And now Xavier was telling me there were others like him, many others being forced into hosts against their will.

  He stared at me, his gaze penetrating. “You do realize you cannot win.”

  I held up my hands and wiggled my fingers. “I can damn try. Right now we have the upper hand. Arachne is dead, along with her spiderlings. Nephs have been stripped of their shadows, and the ghosts that were weakening the humans are gone. The shades’ host supply just got cut off.”

  “Not if Asher succeeds in finding a way to take winged hosts,” Xavier pointed out. “We liberated Abbadon from Asher’s clutches, but the samples that were collected are still in Asher’s possession.”

  “They’ll degrade too fast for him to do anything,” Rivers said. “It’s a long shot.”

  “But still a shot,” Xavier reiterated.

  He was right. The winged needed to be warned, and we needed to make more of a dent in Asher’s army, force him to think twice before making any kind of move.

  I turned to Ryker. “We have to help them.”

  “No,” Rivers said. “You have to kill them.”

  He was referring to the power building up inside me, the fact that if I didn’t expel it, then it would kill me, but Xavier didn’t know that, and the horrified look on his face prodded the ready guilt in my chest.

  Xavier gripped the bars. “No. You don’t need to do that. You don’t need to kill any more shades. We can find a way to free the resistance; many of them have not even taken hosts yet. That will reduce Asher’s numbers and throw him off balance, and then we can end all of this by ending Asher. Once he’s dead, the threat will be over.”

  That would be a great plan except ... “I can’t kill him. I tried.”

  Xavier sat back, his shoulders sagging. “In the tower ... You tried to kill him then?”

  “Yes, what the heck did you think I was doing? Moving in for a hug?”

  He looked away, but not before I caught a glimpse of awareness in his warm brown peepers. What wasn’t he telling me? What was he holding back? He’d told us a story—his story—but there was more he didn’t trust us with. And who could blame him? He’d tipped us off, helped us get Abbadon away from Asher, and when he’d come to us, we’d locked him up. Maybe my suspicion was wrong. In which case, it was time to build a bridge. He needed a vote of confidence, and that would involve sharing a crucial piece of information. Information that if handed to Asher could be u
sed against me. Telling him would show we trusted him, that I trusted him.

  I locked eyes with Xavier. “I need to kill shades to survive. If I go more than a few days without killing one, I’ll die.”

  His head whipped up. “The power will burn through you.”

  “Yes.”

  He shook his head. “If Asher finds out, all he’ll need to do is go underground with all the shades. He’ll wait you out until you die.”

  “Yes.” My tone was soft. “There is no happy ending for me. Trust me. I don’t revel in the kill.” The lie was ashes on my tongue, because, like it or not, the kill brought relief. “The ultimate goal is the protection of humanity, so if you know how to end Asher, you need to share it with me.”

  Xavier’s expression smoothed out. He’d come to a decision, and my body tightened in anticipation. “Asher’s host body is cambion and can be overcome from within.”

  “What do you mean?” Rivers asked.

  “A cambion is similar to an incubus. They feed off energy to survive,” Xavier said.

  “A cambion feeds off a variety of energy,” Ryker clarified, “but an incubus requires sexual energy to survive.”

  Xavier cleared his throat. “I believe that changes when a shade enters the body.”

  How did he know this? My stomach dropped and then hope surged hot and potent through my veins. He knew because he was experiencing the same. My suspicion hadn’t been wrong after all. Ryker tensed beside me, and Rivers stepped out of the shadows to stand by the bars. They’d come to the same conclusion, and the air vibrated with expectation.

  Xavier blinked and looked away. “I know because it’s happening to me.”

  Bingo! My mouth was suddenly as dry as a dust bowl. This was what I’d been angling for—confirmation that Drayton was having an influence. That he was here, with us, listening. He’d steered Xavier to us, and it had been Drayton the wards had picked up on, not Xavier, because Drayton’s essence was now strong enough to mask the shade.

  “He wrote the note, didn’t he?” Ryker asked. Thank goodness, because my throat was too tight to speak.