Shadow Summoner: Choronzon Chronicles Book One

by Tess Adair

  Logan appreciated her impulse to pick up the pace. She just wished that self-protective instinct had kept her from walking home alone in the first place.

  In almost no time at all, Bianca was turning another corner. Logan glanced up desperately at the sky, but there was so little light left, it might as well have been none at all. She kept her pace as it was, worried that Bianca might run from them if she realized they were following her.

  Within moments, she knew she’d made a mistake. From the next street over, she heard a strange scuffling noise…and a scream.

  She broke into a flat-out run, leaving Judith in the dust. Within seconds, she reached the bend where Bianca had disappeared, already fearing the worst. The sight that greeted her was reassuring, but she didn’t allow it to slow her down. Bianca must have flung herself sideways to avoid the beast, as she was now scrambling her way up from a prone position in the middle of the street. The monster, meanwhile, had crashed into a nearby tree; the impact had been so hard, the trunk had cracked near the base, and the bulk of the tree had toppled to the ground with the beast on top of it.

  Logan wasted no time putting her body between the rekal and the girl. As the rekal began to rise up off the ground, she reached down and pulled one of her short knives out of its sheath on her right calf.

  “Run!” she shouted over her shoulder at the girl, who was still struggling to get off the ground.

  “I can’t,” Bianca managed, now crawling away as another attempt to get to her feet failed. “Something’s wrong with my leg.”

  With a grunt of frustration, Logan set her sights back on the rekal, which shook itself as it rose to its full height. Wasting no further time, Logan set off at a run again, crouched as she neared it, and sprang with all her might, launching herself upward.

  Her launch point now differed significantly from before, when she’d jumped down from the tree. This time, she landed somewhere around the beast’s lower midsection, and thrust her knife into its flesh wildly, hoping only to wound enough to slow it down and buy the girl time. The beast roared and stumbled in response, its movements violent enough to throw her off again.

  Fortunately, by now Judith Li had finally caught up to them.

  “Get her home!” Logan barked at her, gesturing emphatically at the fallen Bianca.

  Behind her, the beast roared again. She turned just in time to see it bearing down on her.

  She hadn’t gotten a clear look at the thing before. Now that she did, she could make out a sharp snout, pointed ears, and gleaming red eyes. It looked a little like…a wolf. She barely had time to register the information before it swiped furiously at her and its razor-like claws connected with her body. She was thrown sideways.

  Ignoring the pain of the hit as well as the pain of the fall, she leapt immediately to her feet again. Before her, the monster hesitated. It looked over at Bianca, limping away from them with her arm slung over Judith’s shoulder, then back at Logan as she slipped her second knife out of its sheath, preparing to attack again. She could see the hilt of her first knife still sticking out of its massive form—just underneath where she imagined its ribs should be. She couldn’t help but think there was little point attacking it with another small blade, but she didn’t have much choice at the moment, especially if it decided to make for Bianca again.

  Fortunately, it seemed to decide that she was the better target, and charged.

  Just as it overcame her, she dropped into a crouch, avoiding its massive swing and sending it tumbling headfirst into the pavement. She took advantage of the pause to risk a look over her shoulder at Judith and Bianca. They had almost reached the turn in the road.

  Her breach in concentration proved to be a mistake. Before she could right herself, she felt a burst of pain as something hooked into her calf—the rekal’s long, sharp claw, slicing through her pant leg and into her muscle with ease. As her legs collapsed beneath her, she stifled back any cry of pain, unwilling to give the beast a chance to recognize a sign of weakness and double down its attack. As it dragged her closer, she pulled her left arm above her head and swung it forward, letting loose her blade in a wide arc. With a satisfying swish, it lodged solidly into the beast’s shoulder, near the base of the neck—several degrees shy of a decapitating blow.

  The demon roared and threw back its head in pain, allowing her just enough leeway to tug her leg painfully free from its grip. It didn’t get up again right away; it seemed disoriented now, perhaps even tired. Logan scrambled to stand and crouched low, watching to see how much power the beast had lost before she advanced again. She could already tell she was losing a considerable amount of blood herself.

  Just as she decided to ready herself for the attack again, she heard that flute sounding in the distance.

  All at once, the beast’s concentration came back—and it turned tail and ran.

  After the debacle over the weekend, she wasn’t about to let this chance slip away from her. She tucked all thoughts of pain aside and took off as fast as she could.

  Fortunately for her, the beast took off down an empty road at first, which negated all the advantage it had in the rough terrain around them, allowing her to close in on its lead. When it finally did burst into the trees, she managed to keep up delightfully well, keeping the beast in her sights the whole time.

  Finally, after far longer than she would have liked, they careened into an open field, illuminated silver by the first moon rays of the early night. There, on the far end, stood a dark figure in a hooded coat.

  Before he lowered his hood, Logan knew without a shadow of a doubt that Kurt Redmond stood before her. Something about him—some uncomfortable, inimitable quality—made anything else impossible.

  The beast slowed down when it saw him. She watched as it calmly crossed the expanse, then bowed low before him. Kurt cocked his head to the side, then reached down and tugged Logan’s second knife free from its shoulder.

  She moved forward but didn’t close all the distance between them. She had a feeling that the beast would start healing immediately—which put her at a disadvantage, as her half-human blood still coursed down her leg at an alarming rate.

  “Fascinating,” she heard Kurt say as he examined her blade. As far as she could tell, he was intrigued by the design of the patterns in the hilt.

  So. He’d never seen a knife that had been spelled like hers before. It wasn’t anything too complicated—one binding spell to keep the blade sharp so it required less maintenance, and one to strengthen the steel so it was less likely to break mid-battle. She’d carried far more complicated pieces before.

  He clicked his gaze upward, narrowing in on her with a certain sharpness. She’d seen looks like that before, and she didn’t like them. It had a kind of predatory edge, almost sexual. The suggestion made her more than a little uncomfortable.

  “Where’d you get this?” he asked, the greed in his voice clear and unchecked.

  “I got it at the magic weapon store, where you get all the magic weapons,” she answered, edging closer still.

  “You can stop right there, thank you,” he said, scowling at her. “You may have a few fancy knives, but don’t forget that I’m the one with the demon.” He pointed redundantly at the beast, which still kneeled before him as though it were frozen. “Now, truly, tell me where you got this.”

  Logan shrugged. “I got it at an army surplus store. Where I got it isn’t the point.”

  “It isn’t?” He now held the blade up above him, as though he hoped the glinting moonlight might illuminate its secrets.

  “Like I said. I got it at an army surplus store.”

  “But not like this,” he said, holding it out before him. “It looks…different. It feels different, too. I can’t say how exactly, but I know that it feels different from how it should. What did you do to it? Why does it feel this way?”

  She shrugged again. He was starting to bore her. “It’s been spelled, nothing special. I made it stronger and sharper. You can do that with sim
ple spells, once you have a solid understanding of the basics. But for that, you’d need to be trained somewhere. And I can’t imagine you’ve trained with anyone. Not anyone who knows what they’re doing, at least.”

  Perhaps it was dangerous to antagonize him, but she didn’t particularly care. He seemed a shallow threat to her at worst. The beast was the real problem, and the beast couldn’t be antagonized with words.

  “I am primarily self-taught,” he answered haughtily, puffing out his chest as though she might actually be impressed by that. “How can you tell?”

  “Because every master I know would have told you never to summon a rekal,” she answered easily, almost lazily. “Even the disreputable masters would have at least told you to kill it as soon as it accomplished a single task. You don’t keep a rekal long enough for round two.”

  “You can’t scare me,” he growled at her. “You may be older than me, but you’re still just a girl.”

  “A girl who’s thwarted your big dumb monster twice now.”

  Kurt turned his gaze on the beast with a mixture of admiration and pride. He was still so pleased with himself for the accomplishment of bringing it forth, completely unaware it was likely the single stupidest thing he’d ever done.

  “Don’t you like my monster?” he asked, his eyes glinting as he leered at her. He gazed back at the monster, admiration still writ large on his features. “I like my monster just fine. He always does exactly as he’s told. Unlike some people.”

  When he spoke, she only half-heard him. She was preoccupied, replaying the same four words that had haunted her since she’d stepped foot in town.

  “Do you worship it?” she asked.

  Kurt looked up at her in shock. “Do I worship it? The beast bows to me, not the other way around. I have the power.”

  She sidestepped her first reaction, which was to think that rarely did anyone with true power feel the need to state it. Instead, she cocked her head to the side, wondering what piece of the picture she was still missing.

  “Do you worship the wolf?” she asked. The rekal did, indeed, look like a wolf. But she had to admit she was sorely disappointed to think that the wolf, whispered to her so fervently by the dreams of the Key, might turn out to be nothing more challenging than this brute demon.

  “The Wolf?” Kurt’s voice betrayed pure shock and confusion. “How do you know that name?”

  Name. It’s a name. So, proper noun. She left her face impassive, kept her body still. “I just do.”

  Kurt paused for a moment, then laughed. “But you don’t know what it means at all! How else could you think the Wolf could be something so low and simple as this? Well, I’ll give you that you’re on the right track. After all, I do owe the existence of my special pet to none other than the Wolf, don’t I? Mind you, I did all the work myself.” He puffed himself up again. “But I never would have thought of it on my own. I’d barely even started with magic when he showed himself to me.”

  Logan cocked an eyebrow but let nothing else move. “When he showed himself to you?” Her voice was quiet and unobtrusive—almost more a suggestion than anything else. A suggestion that Kurt Redmond saw no reason to ignore.

  “Yes, he showed himself to me,” he said, his certainty of his own worthiness coating his voice like slime. “When he knew I was ready, he showed himself to me. I earned the privilege, you see. The Wolf won’t show himself to just anyone. That’s probably why you don’t know what he looks like. You may know how to make some cute accessories, but clearly the Wolf doesn’t think you’re worth his time.”

  “Clearly,” Logan answered, her voice and face still neutral.

  “He came to me at the right time, just when I really needed him.” Kurt sighed, his hand coming up to his neck, where the flute hung on a thin chain. “I had a problem, you see. A problem with a girl.”

  “Violet.”

  “Yes, Violet. Beautiful girl, but not as smart as you would think.” He sighed like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. “She was just good at tricking people, that’s why the teachers all loved her so much. Those girls have it so easy. They can trick anyone they want.”

  Those girls. Maybe he meant pretty girls. Or maybe he meant all of them. It didn’t matter.

  “Is that why you murdered her?”

  Shock flooded his face again. “What? That’s not how it happened.” He shook his head. “I loved her.”

  “I doubt that,” Logan answered easily. She took another tiny step forward, certain that he would be too distracted to notice. She was correct. “Regardless, you killed her. No doubt about that.”

  “No!” he nearly shouted. “I didn’t kill her!” He stomped one of his feet, and the beast actually seemed to inch back from him. Logan wondered idly if it had enough capacity for thought to be as disgusted by its master as she was. “I loved her. If anything, she killed herself—because she couldn’t see my love for what it was. She was blind, blind to everything! Just like the rest of them.” He got a strange, faraway look in his eye, like the world he saw was something entirely different from the one everyone else saw. “Everyone’s always been set against me, my whole life. But they’re wrong, every single one of them. They’ve always been wrong.”

  Who was he talking about? Logan didn’t ask; she was too busy inching steadily forward.

  “And she was just like the rest of them, in the end. She had to pay, you know. She had to pay for what she did to me. I couldn’t just let it stand.”

  “Let what stand? Her rejection?”

  “My humiliation!” he exclaimed in return. He was easy to rile up. “How could I let her keep on walking around in front of everyone after she’d humiliated me like that?”

  She knew from reading her file that Violet could be cruel, but somehow she had a feeling that that wasn’t what had happened in this case. Besides, as far as she could tell, the targets of Violet’s bullying had all been other girls.

  “What did she do to you?” she asked quietly.

  His face went blank and his shoulders a little slack. “She couldn’t see the truth. She was just a bitch like all the rest of them. All she wanted to do was torture me. You know, she’s lucky I did it this way. I could have done something much worse.” His face cracked in a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. It made her slightly sick to look at. “What if I’d messed up her pretty little face so that no one would ever want her again? She would have been nothing then. She’d have to be grateful then. She’d have to beg.” As she watched in muted horror, his eyes seemed to drain of light. It was almost as though he’d forgotten she could hear him. “Not that I would stop, if she begged. But I would have liked to hear it.”

  Logan allowed the silence to fill up between them. She was close enough now, not that he’d noticed. As he’d talked, she’d grown more and more certain that he’d already told her everything he could about the Wolf. He was nothing but a pawn, and whoever the Wolf was, she didn’t think he’d had any intention to disclose anything of importance to this whimpering boy.

  “I see,” she said quietly. “Well, that is amazing.”

  He turned his empty lamp-like eyes on her. “So now you can see it. My terrible power.”

  “Oh no, that’s not what I meant." With a movement so small he couldn’t possibly notice, she unhooked the small button snap at the bottom of her axe’s sheath. “I’m amazed at how pathetic you are. And I set my standards pretty low for you the moment I first saw you.”

  He laughed at her again, but it sounded hollower than before. “Do you really think someone pathetic could summon a monster this powerful?”

  She didn’t laugh. She didn’t find any of this funny. “You summoned a monster because you didn’t get your way. Yes, that’s pathetic.”

  “Because—because I didn’t—get my way?” He was spluttering in outrage. She found it fascinating that he still had the capacity.

  “You threw a tantrum, like a small child. Unfortunately for Violet, you had access to magic you were unprepared
for and unworthy of, and you used it to kill her.”

  At that, he stood up straight again, staring with defiance in his eyes. “I didn’t kill her.”

  “You did. You killed her.”

  “No, no, no!” He even sounded like a child now. “No, see, that’s where you’re wrong! I didn’t kill her—the beast killed her.”

  “The beast was your instrument. You killed her. You are responsible for it.”

  “I’m not responsible for any of this! She brought this on herself. The rekal answers the plea of righteous vengeance only—don’t you see? She left me with no other choice! We were meant to be together, and she refused to see it. She refused to see the light. I can’t…I’m not responsible. She…she…she didn’t understand. She only got what was coming to her.”

  Logan shook her head slowly. She almost would have pitied him, were it not for his actions. “The rekal came when you called because you did a spell. Its appearance doesn’t prove your righteousness; vengeance demons are undiscerning.” She sighed heavily, displeased by his continued stupidity. “She didn’t want you, Kurt.”

  “She didn’t—she didn’t understand—”

  “She understood it perfectly. She said no.” His face looked like it might crack open any moment. “She said no, and you killed her for it. That’s not love. You can’t love someone when you don’t see them as a person. You didn’t love her, and you didn’t deserve to be with her. You can’t earn a person. That’s not how love works, and that’s not how people work. You wanted her to be your little fantasy, and you didn’t care what she wanted. That’s sick. You had no right to do what you did. It infuriated you that she could say no to you, so you decided to make her pay for it. That’s pathetic. You’re sick, and you’re pathetic. And that’s all you are.”

  “No. No, she didn’t get it.” His voice was quiet and his eyes were cold as he stared her down. “You don’t get it either.”

  “Was she a robot to you?” A fire was building in her; she let it spread. “Was she a human-sized doll? You say you were meant to be with her, but you didn’t listen to her when she spoke, and you wouldn’t accept that she was allowed to say no. How could that be love? Are you an idiot?”