The Shadow: The Original's Trilogy

by Cara Crescent

  He shot the beast another side-long glance. That might explain the taint of daemon surrounding it, but he didn’t quite buy it. As a shifter, if there was one thing he knew, it was animals. And that wasn’t like any animal he’d ever seen.

  She sat at the edge of an armchair, facing him with her big books on her lap. “Can I get you anything?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “You offering a snack?” He shouldn’t tease, he couldn’t help himself.

  She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t even think about it.”

  Huh. Never, in all the time he’d spent with Satrina, had he ever managed to get a rise out of her. This Trina he liked better. She showed her emotions. “Well, if there’s no blood to be had—”

  “James has a cold storage safe upstairs.”

  “You know about that?” He’d been planning to wait for her to go to sleep before searching the premises for Pasquino’s cooler. Every Guardian had one. “Why don’t you see if there’s anything in there. Should be set to our universal code.” He rattled off the combination.

  While she went upstairs, he called Harry. The lad picked up on the second ring.

  “What?”

  Well, praise Jesus. “You all right?”

  “You know what? You have to stop treating me like a kid. This is beyond ridiculous. For fuck’s sake, Duncan, you went to the Council. You were there. If you’d told me you were going—”

  “You’re not ready, pup.” Harry had been trying to talk him into taking on the Council for years. He understood. The lad wanted revenge for whatever had been done to him, but he couldn’t allow it to happen before Harry had a chance at winning the fight.

  “You know what? Fuck you and the horse you rode in on. I didn’t ask for this. None of it. Now I’m stuck in this goddamned mausoleum of days gone by—”

  Damn, the lad was in a rare mood. “All right, then. Just wanted to make sure you were still alive.”

  “—while you’re out there doing whatever the fuck you’re doing.”

  “Do you think this is enough?” Trina walked in, her gaze measuring the two bags of blood she held in her hands. She glanced up, saw him on the phone and winced. Sorry.

  “You’re with a woman?” Harry scoffed. “Oh, that’s fucking rich—” His voice grew louder with every word.

  “Gotta go. Keep the monitors on. Stay safe.” He cut the call on one of the lad’s more colorful curses.

  Trina lifted a brow.

  “My charge. He ain’t too happy with me leaving him behind.”

  “He shouldn’t talk to you like that.” She handed him one bag and set the other on the ottoman.

  “You heard?” He popped the cap off the bag.

  She sat in the armchair. “He was yelling.”

  He shrugged. “Sometimes things ain’t as simple as they seem. He’s been through ten lifetimes worth of pain, and he’s a bit of a thing.”

  “With a mouth like that?”

  How to explain Harry? “The Council did things to him. Don’t know what, but they had him for a long time. By the time I got to him, he was more animal than anything. He didn’t want to live, but I saved him anyway. Have had him for almost a decade now. He still has panic attacks. Nightmares. Feel like, if cussing gives him a sense of control . . . far be it from me to take that away.” He motioned to the books she’d left next to the armchair. “Why don’t we take a look-see at those and try to figure out what’s going on?”

  *****

  Trina stared down at the book. “This is Rowena’s Grimoire. She cursed the Original. She killed the women of the last coven—our mothers. She wasn’t a good person.” She shook her head. “Part of me is afraid to open the damn thing.”

  “Give it. I’ll do it.”

  “No.” The denial came quick, vehement, surprising her. “I need to see for myself.”

  “Understood.” He patted the loveseat. “Why don’t you come over here?”

  Her mouth went dry. She shouldn’t. She shouldn’t try to lean on him or take support from him. She couldn’t rely on him. Not ever. Still, she joined him on the loveseat. With a trembling hand, she opened the book.

  The first few pages were written in the rounded scrawl of a teenaged cheerleader. The spells, rudimentary and morally suspect.

  He squinted down at the book. “Is that a cheating spell?”

  “Mm.” She paused, looking over the words before flipping the page. “And a love potion. Interesting.”

  “Why?” He took a long swig of blood.

  “Our creed says, ‘If it harms none, do what you will.’ These spells, they’re all harmful.”

  “Not outright. It isn’t as though she’s killing people.”

  She pinned him with her gaze. “She did. Eventually. Once you start playing in the Darkness, it’s easy to get lost.”

  “We’re daemons.” He winked. “It’s our job to toe the line and do what others don’t have the stomach for.”

  She looked away. The book outlined Rowena’s slow escalation from minor infringements on human lives to the outright murder of her coven sisters.

  As she flipped through pages, the handwriting changed, along with the difficulty of the spells.

  “What’s that?” Duncan put his hand on the page to keep her from turning it. “The Thirteen Steps to Hell?”

  For a moment, she wasn’t sure. She scanned the page, caught the words “Maltby Cemetery” amid Rowena’s scrawl. She laughed. “It’s an old urban legend. If you walk down these steps in this cemetery, they say you disappear.” She rolled her eyes. “If you survive long enough to reach the bottom, you see yourself burning in the flames of hell and go mad.”

  He frowned. “Isn’t there a kernel of truth to every legend?”

  “The owner poured cement over them years ago. They don’t even exist anymore.” She turned the pages. Rowena had dedicated several pages to the steps before she came to a page that had “The Original” scrawled across the top. “Here.”

  Duncan leaned closer.

  She read it out loud. “When the Original is no longer cursed, she’ll come to thee as three. All as humans first, then as daemons are set free: the Beacon burning bright, the Shadow hidden from sight, the blighted, damned Knight.” She chewed her lip. “I thought the Original was one person, not three.”

  Duncan pulled the other book out from under Rowena’s Grimoire, set it on top and opened it. He flipped through to The Original, and they both leaned forward to read.

  She’d read most of the story at Rowena’s house before Duncan had interrupted her. Lilith and Adam were created as equals. Lilith refused to lie beneath Adam and she left Eden. When she saw Eve pregnant, she’d grown jealous and vowed to kill any unprotected infants. The goddess confronted Lilith and they’d fought. She scanned to the battle between Lilith and the goddess, where she’d left off earlier.

  “Damn.” He pointed to the same section she’d been reading. “Her soul was split in two.”

  “That accounts for two people, not three.”

  “Says those who shared in her blood or Magic were also cursed to reincarnate in human form until they learned some lesson.” He set the book aside. “That angel she took for a lover turned her into a vampire, right? So they shared blood. Maybe he’s the Knight.”

  Maybe. She glanced at him sideways. Wouldn’t that be him? Samael.

  Rowena had three words circled, Beacon, Shadow, and Knight. A line was drawn from each, pointing to a name scrawled in the margin. Lilith’s name was linked to the Beacon, but the next name made the breath stall in her lungs. The line linking the Shadow pointed to her name.

  The room spun for a moment. Not that she was surprised, it did explain a lot. Why she disappeared when Lilith—the light—wasn’t around. Why Rowena had always been afraid of her. Why her Magic had changed when James transformed Lilith into a vampire. She just didn’t want to believe it. Besides, it left too many unanswered questions. If she were part of the Original, why did she infect Lilith when they touched? Why did the Counci
l only want one of them alive? Why did Crowley? Why could the Watchers hear Lilith, but not her?

  “You didn’t know?”

  “Rowena could’ve been wrong.”

  “What do you think?”

  What did she think? Being the Shadow-half of the Original wasn’t exactly flattering. In psychology, the Shadow represented the part of each person they’d rather hide—the part that could turn mean when backed into a corner, that could kill. She chewed on her lip. The Shadow of the Original. Was that like a shadow-self?

  Goddess, help me. Her mind raced, piecing through the last couple years when everything had gone wrong.

  What if she’d triggered this when she’d killed Trevor? He’d been an ass, but he hadn’t deserved to die. She hadn’t meant to kill him.

  Everything had been fine until that event. That’s when she’d started going invisible. She’d been terrified that she’d get caught. She’d been . . . . Dear goddess, what if she’d done it to herself—caused her own invisibility because she’d been so scared?

  When Trevor died, she’d only had a couple weeks left of her enlistment. She completed her enlistment, but had always expected the MPs to come calling. Those last two weeks had been hell.

  When she’d gotten out of the Navy, she’d holed up in a little studio apartment just off base. She’d quit calling Lilith. Refused to answer Lilith’s texts or tell her where she was because she’d been so scared the police would come knocking and she didn’t want to get Lilith involved.

  What if she’d triggered the Shadow-self of the Original within herself? What if she’d made herself invisible to avoid punishment for her crime? What if she was escalating like Rowena had without even realizing it? She’d almost killed James the same way she’d killed Trevor. Her actions had allowed Crowley to get away. She’d shot Duncan who was only here to help. She hadn’t planned to do any of those things . . . they’d just happened. Maybe because she tended to be impulsive. Maybe because of bad luck. What if the Shadow aspect of the Original was making her do things—things that would allow the bad guys to win?

  No. She was a good person, damn it.

  “Hey.” Duncan reached over and tipped her chin his way. “What do you think of all this?”

  “I think I don’t know what to think.” She returned her attention to the book. “Looks like she couldn’t make up her mind about the Knight.” Several names that had been written in had been scribbled out: Brenda, Sherry, Meredith. Below them, one name was circled: James.

  He leaned in even more, his arm pressing up against hers and pointed. “What does that say?”

  The tightly curved letters were almost illegible. “Knight Templar?”

  “So James is the Knight?”

  Again, maybe. Why would Lilith’s mate be the Knight but not hers? Or were they both, like her and Lilith were both part of the Original? Neither made sense as she read the poem again. She shrugged. “Rowena was a little, uh, bat-shit crazy there at the end. I mean, why assume any of us were part of the Original?”

  He grinned. “Says right there at the bottom, love.” He pointed to the bottom of the page. Souls gravitate to those they’ve known before.

  “You believe that?”

  He rested back against the cushions. “Ain’t been around as long as others, but long enough to re-meet those I’ve known before. Not all, but some.” His gaze bored into hers as if trying to instill some extra meaning to his words. He didn’t seem so scary now. Didn’t seem big in a threatening way. There was something about him that was peaceful. Something that reached right inside her, slowing her heart to a steady rhythm.

  Focus. She returned her attention to the book. Lilith thought Rowena might have had information on the Original that would help her figure out why her skin had turned black when they touched, but there were no answers here. Even if she was the Shadow to Lilith’s Beacon, shouldn’t they be able to be together if they shared part of the same soul?

  She flipped the page and wished she hadn’t. “Rowena wrote everything down. The spells. The dates. Which of our moms she used each spell on.” All of them were there, except hers. Her mother had died in a car crash—not because of Rowena, but because of her.

  “Thorough for a head case. What was she doing there at the end?”

  She flipped to the last few pages. One name in particular caught her eye. “Julius Crowley.”

  Duncan lowered the PVC bag. “She knew him? You know him?”

  “They were working together. I don’t think it was for long and it didn’t work out the way either of them expected, but . . . .” She read some of the entry. “He wanted access to Lilith in exchange for making the coven obey Rowena.”

  “The coven didn’t like her?”

  “From what Lilith told me, the coven was rebelling against Rowena’s plans to start a war with the Council.” She read a little more. “She planned to betray him from the start. Rowena did a dream spell on someone named Dr. Edwin Moss. Told him about Crowley’s healing capabilities. At least she told him to keep Crowley’s eyes covered.” She sat back. “Why do that? Why the hell does that name sound familiar?” She pulled out her phone and searched the name. Immediately, the news stories about RI and their race to save the soldiers came up. “Oh, dear goddess, I can’t believe I didn’t make the connection.” She typed in ‘Where is revelations industries located?’

  “What?”

  “He’s the director of RI.”

  “Those men that tried to detain us . . . they work for this Moss bloke?”

  “Yeah.” Smyrna Island. RI was located on a little island out in Oceania. She pulled up the map and pictures. She’d been to the island once while in the Navy—they’d done practice maneuvers there. There wasn’t much she could do with the information now. She needed to gain control of her Magic before they went after Crowley or she’d risk making things worse. “Moss is the director of a bioweapons company. The last director sold one of RI’s new bio-weapons to our enemies, who infected a whole squadron of our troops. They’re dying from exposure—the bio-weapon was stolen before they’d made an antibody. Moss was on the news all last week, begging the science community to help him find a cure.”

  “And Rowena gave him Crowley.” He sagged back against the couch. “A vampire with a mesmerist talent and bioweapons. Nothing good can come from that.”

  Chapter 9

  Smyrna Island, Pacific Oceania

  U.S. Department of Defense

  Revelations Industries, Inc.

  Julius Crowley woke with a start. He’d been having a pleasant dream . . . well, not pleasant exactly, he’d been chained up in a house. In an old basement, which wasn’t nice at all. But there was this gorgeous, voluptuous redhead. She’d kissed him. Told him she belonged to him and that everything would be okay. It was bullshit, of course, but it had been pleasant.

  Christ, it was stifling under the hood. He couldn’t see, the sounds around him were muffled. The air he dragged in tasted stale and thin. The rest of him was cold as bejesus. Something pinned his limbs to the icy slab at his back, pinching his skin tight under some kind of restraints.

  This wasn’t the first time he’d been forced into a hood and he doubted it’d be the last. But, damn, he hated it. He’d been forced to wear one too many times over the centuries, thanks to his Vampiric talent.

  What the hell had happened? Everything was blank. Everything was— He wanted everything to be blank. Memories tried to return, but he pushed them away. He didn’t want to think. Didn’t want to remember. He just wanted away from wherever he was.

  Where the hell are we?

  He got no answer. He wanted to go back to sleep but his body shivered from cold and stress. There’d be no more sleep for a long while.

  This happened more often lately—this abrupt return to consciousness when he least wanted it. For decades, he’d been able to recede into his own mind, disconnecting himself from what Azazel did with his body, refusing to acknowledge the pain. The guilt. Now that Azazel was so active
, finding that quiet place away had become almost impossible.

  Possession—yeah, it was a bitch.

  The first time Azazel had seized his body, Julius had wanted nothing more than for the fallen angel to get the fuck out. After he did leave, once Julius had witnessed firsthand the power of a Watcher unconstrained by a host body, he’d realized he needed to restrict the Watcher from accessing all his power. Julius had done the one thing in his power to protect humanity—he’d held on to the bastard the next time Azazel possessed him. Trapped him inside his body, limiting his power.

  That little brainstorm had proved to be the stupidest, most reckless, painful, and arrogant thing he’d ever done, because now they were stuck. He’d been paying the price for his rash move for over three centuries.

  Chalk another line on the wall there, boss.

  The hair on his bare arms prickled as someone came near, he strained to hear over his breathing. Each heavy breath echoed under the hood, muffling and distorting sounds from without. Which side were they on? What were they doing? The low whine of some type of spinning mechanism filled the room. His muscles tensed.

  Azazel’s voice filled his mind. Host, you must see this.

  For a moment, he could see. Not with his eyes, but inside his head. They were in a sterile room—white and stainless steel—and he was spread out naked on a gurney, strapped down and hooded. A fat little man loomed over him, holding a long, thin tool with a spinning blade on the end.

  “Oh, God.”

  Laughter bloomed inside his head. The vision disappeared, leaving him surrounded by the darkness of the hood.

  You sick bastard, one of these days—the fat man started to speak, and he silenced his mind to listen.

  “When we first brought you in, we catalogued a number of open wounds and bruises on your body, but—”

  “Who are you?”

  He ignored the question. “—within twenty-four hours, they had all healed. Nothing short of miraculous.”

  Julius tried again. “Where am I?”