The Covenant of Shadows Collection

by Kade Cook

  Cimmerian’s teeth grind, making the sides of his jaw pulse, the center of his palms flare as he turns around, and his black eyes rush to glare at the monster before him.

  “Regardless of how much one whines about it, leverage is everything, and I do like having it heavily weighted on my side.”

  Adrinn’s voice slices at Cimmerian’s ears like a dull rusted knife. Not able to stand hearing it any longer, and not willing to swallow down any more of his sickening poison, Cimmerian snaps, raising his eyes and focuses in on the monster, breath settling in his lungs as he gathers himself. Shaking his fingers, the Magik comes alive once more within his palms, snapping at their master’s command for its presence. “You want leverage?”

  Adrinn turns his head to mock his guest but the smug grin slips from his face. The tone in Cimmerian’s voice alerts him to the power of the enraged mage before him. His body, silhouetted by the glowing violet aura that whips around him like a vision of death itself in a wild and feral storm about to unleash with eyes as black as night itself.

  “I will show you what leverage is.”

  61

  SPILLED COFFEE

  After twenty minutes of letting the magic of the warm shower flow over her body, Gabrian lets go of the moment and smiles, thinking how great it was to see Thomas again. She wonders about the strange entanglement that took place between his and Ethan’s auras and the fact Ethan thought he was nothing more than human. Her mind whirls. The curiosity in these unknowns distracts her and eases the knots in her stomach about her own anxious dilemma, at least for a moment.

  Finishing in the shower, she dries off and twists her long dark hair up into a towel—tucking it like a turban at the top of her head—then climbs head first into the fuzzy giraffe jammies, faithfully waiting for her on the sink. She is not expected at the office until noon, so the rest of the evening is hers to unwind and make things right again with Shane, she hopes.

  Hearing her phone buzz from atop the kitchen counter below, a stinging surge of adrenaline shocks her senses and she nearly breaks the door down trying to get to it. She skips down the stairs—missing three at a time. Picking it up and flipping it over, her heart pounds in her ears. New message displays as she opens the screen but lowers her hand back down, holding it still, smile transformed into a frown. Matthias is not the name she had hoped to see on her screen. Not that she does not like hearing from him, normally she would have been more than happy to read his message, but not today.

  She sighs, letting out a deep wave of sadness and rips the towel from her head—her tangled damp locks drape over her yellow giraffes, cloaking them from seeking her disappointment.

  A loud buzz hums from within her hand, surprising her, and she drops the gadget on the floor. Fumbling as she tries to pick it back up, she finally clasps hold of it and turns it over to read the screen.

  Shane: Yah.

  Gabrian: I need you.

  Shane: Are you OK?

  Gabrian: Yes, no… Listen, I was wrong. Everything I said, everything I did to push you away. I was wrong.

  Shane: Stop.

  Gabrian: No, I need to explain.

  No response.

  Gabrian: I just need to hear the sound of your voice.

  Gabrian: Shane, please.

  Still no response.

  Gabrian: Are you there?

  Shane: Just give me a few minutes. Okay?

  Gabrian: Okay. Will I see you soon?

  Shane: Yah. Soon.

  Gabrian’s cheeks grow pink with relief, a thousand tons of weigh lift, and her body floats in the excitement of seeing his face. Even if he shows nothing but hatred in his eyes for what she has done, it feels like forever since she has looked upon him—the last two weeks seem a lifetime ago.

  Her heart flutters beneath her chest as she debates her emotions. Shame punches at her for how badly she treated him, but she is elated by thoughts of just seeing him, his presence standing before her in her kitchen, and that he agreed to show. She knows that she has cut him deeply, but she will find a way to fix what she has done. She must for the sake of their survival within the Realm.

  She stills her shaky legs by jumping up on the countertop, letting them swing idly below as she plays out what she is going to say to him. Reaching to the side, she grabs her latte and takes a long draw of the lukewarm liquid and smiles, happy to be home and awaits the arrival of her guardian, hoping for forgiveness and to wrap him in the love he deserves from her.

  The sting of a strong surge of energy erupts all around her and Gabrian is jarred from her daydream of solace. Violet strings of Magik wrap around her, crackling and snapping, making hairs on her arms rise along her skin as everything goes dark, sucking Gabrian into a void of swirling blackness until her body is no more. All that remains is a large latte container, resting on its side. Its innards spill, running out across the surface of the countertop, laying waste to espresso and cream as it drips onto the floor below.

  62

  UP TO HER OLD TRICKS

  Stepping from of the shadows, just outside the front door of Gabrian’s parent’s house, Shane feels the sharp sting of nerves biting at him, making his arm shake as he raises his hand to knock. Not having seen her since she left him standing alone in the rain, he can barely stand the strain of his heart twisting beneath his ribs. The distance between them only caused him more grief. He was a fool to think that staying away would help with the pain.

  He raps his knuckles gently on the outside of the door and waits, holding his breath.

  Not getting a reply, he knocks a little harder this time.

  Still nothing.

  His heart jumps, feeling a familiar unsettling drop in his chest as his mind recalls a certainty he hopes is just a coincidence. He closes his eyes to concentrate on any energy inside. Not finding any trace of life nearby, he reaches for the door handle and twists it open. The sting of black Magik hits his nose as it lingers in the air. Shane pushes past the door and rushes inside, startled by the sight waiting for him.

  On the cupboard is an overturned take-out coffee cup—marked Coffee Hound—spilled and running onto the floor, pooling into a puddle.

  If he knows anything about anything in Gabrian’s world, this is a definite crime scene if he has ever seen one.

  63

  BLACK MAGIC

  Dancing in a weightless dome suspended just above the ground, Gabrian blinks her eyes open and tries to focus. The high-pitched sound of Black Magik pierces her ears and scrapes at the insides of her skull.

  Where am I?

  Tightening her eyes, she concentrates on a muffled noise in the distance—the sound of people shouting. Straining to find them, her eyes ache as the night vision engages in the darkness. She is able to make out two forms. Pushing harder to focus, she recognizes who they are. Cimmerian and Adrinn, engaged in some kind of confrontation. Unable to hear what the two are arguing about, Gabrian studies the violet glowing walls of her prison and gets the feeling it is something that must concern her.

  She yells out to them.

  Bad move.

  The Magik within the orb enters Gabrian’s lungs, choking her as it sears the sides of her throat causing her to cough and grab her neck in pain. Adrinn glances in her direction but Cimmerian stands firm, not flinching in the least at her insignificant plea. His hand is still raised, pulsing with Magik while strands of violet light reach out toward her, tickling the outside edges of her intangible prison.

  The tips of her fingers tingle, warming up in her struggle to get attention, but she soon learns that tactic is useless. She is ignored and any chance of them letting her out it is ignored along with her. She will have to figure this out on her own.

  She stares down at her hands and flips them over. Gabrian’s palms ignite in a subtle mauve glow. Reaching out to touch at the sides of the magical orb, she presses them forward and tries to sear a hole in the crackling violet wall holding her against her will, but nothing yields. Contrary to her attempts of escape, the enchan
ted wall draws in whatever Magik she uses—draining her like a battery. She releases her hold on the orb and it slows, to her relief, but she can still feel it licking at her energy level. Knowing nothing about how this Magik works, Gabrian decides trying to escape from it does more harm than good. All she can do now is try to stay away from its sheath, or better yet, find a way to protect herself from it before it drains her dry.

  *.*.*

  “Give me my daughter!” Cimmerian demands, eyes hazed over in the colour of midnight. “Or I will end yours.”

  “Come now, don’t be so hasty.” The remnants of the Vampire shifts uncomfortably, realizing that the tables have shifted and not in his favour. “Just release the girl from the orb and we shall have a more civilized conversation.”

  “You first,” Cimmerian hisses, his voice low and ominous, face showing no empathy to the fiend’s request. “I will hold her in there as long as it takes.”

  “It is not that simple,” his voice quivers. “It is more complicated than that. I can’t just pull Symone out, there are rules—there are sacrifices to be made.”

  “I think I have sacrificed quite enough,” Cimmerian growls. “I believe it is your turn to feel what sacrifice is like.”

  Adrinn glances over at his daughter’s crypt, watching it eat away at her Magik, her life force, and knows her time is limited within the orb. The containment spell Cimmerian propels around her is too strong in his furious state.

  “You must let her out of that orb. You will kill her,” Adrinn tries to reason, knowing things are going bad as he takes note of the ground. It begins to smolder with the haze of Gargons, death seekers, who have caught the scent of a meal—time is running out. “Then where will you be? No one wins in that game.”

  ***

  From the edge of the trees within the cover of night, Shane traces Gabrian’s energy and finds the strange scene unfolding. Unsure of what to make of it, Shane reaches into the shadows and sends an urgent message through the Veil to his father, giving a brief mental recount of what he is witnessing. It is imperative that Ariah summon the Elders and tell them their immediate attendance is requested by the guardian to the Silver Mage.

  The ground cracks. Fissures vein across the ground as venomous poison oozes out of the ground, seeping toward the suspended orb. Gabrian stills herself upon the sizzling floor of her tomb. She no longer hears anything of the outside world over the ringing in her head. Flickers of her dwindling Magik still reside within her veins, labouring against the Black Mage’s entrapment of her soul. She feels like she is drowning, her lungs heavy, and the need to draw in air is shallow and scorching as she drags in a ragged breath, coughing.

  The Gargons take form beneath the orb, their spindly webs darting in and out of the contoured hole that marks a mouth on their face—sensing her last remaining strands of life just above them and tasting her spirit as it slips from the world. Grasping onto the sphere and reaching into the Magik touching her, Gabrian shifts her eyes toward them and a faint smile grows across her lips. Her hand slides toward them as they pull at her skin.

  For a moment, she releases the creatures from her sight as her eyes breach the darkness and catch on the familiar form standing within the shadows in the distance. Her eyes glaze over, blurring her last glimpse of him, and her heart sings out one final song.

  He’s here—he came back.

  Then as if a silent voice calls to her, she blinks him away and returns to the death keepers drawing her down through the orb’s violet membrane, as if it were a mirage, and into the crevice that awaits their return to Erebus.

  Feeling the brief weight of Gabrian’s eyes on him and sparse strands of her essence still remaining in the space across the field, Shane breaks from his message and rushes forward to reach her, but it is too late. No longer does her spirit reside on Earth—even her body is gone. Only the lingering smell of her skin remains in the void. The Gargons have taken her and crossed over into the barrier between the dimensions. All that remains is the noise of bickering between an oblivious Derkaz Elder and a familiar phantom-like form.

  “She is gone!” Shane screams at them, alerting the two adversaries to his presence.

  They stop their quarreling and turn to face the interruption. The glow of eerie green eyes strikes them down as the large Schaeduwe storms toward them from within the shadows.

  “They have taken her, and you did nothing to stop them.”

  Cimmerian scans the innards of the prison still hovering above the ground. “No!” he yells out, seeing no sign of his captive within. He lowers his hand and the sizzling Magik within the violet ring dissipates as it is called back to his hand. “I never meant for this…. I did not think…”

  “I know you didn’t think, you let them take her.”

  Adrinn’s eyes widen, face drawing out flat before filling with a flicker of genuine fear, leaving nothing but a wisp of twisted smoke behind him as he vanishes.

  “Open the connection to Erebus,” the young Shadow Walker demands from the Derkaz Elder, standing over him with eyes piercing and feral.

  “What? No, I can’t. It is too dangerous.”

  “I don’t care how dangerous it is, I am going in. I have to save her.”

  “The toxins between worlds are not for the living. You will not survive the shift in dimensions. Even the mystical Magik that your veins hold cannot stand against it for long. You will be destroyed.”

  “I don’t care, don’t you get that! It is not about me anymore. I need to save the girl. I made an oath and will stand by it. Now, open the portal. I command you as the guardian of the Silver Mage, do it now!”

  A wave of shock thunders through Cimmerian at the words just directed at him. Hearing the official command slip from the young Schaeduwe’s lips, Cimmerian bows his head and does as he is told. With his hands ablaze, a rippling wave of violet Magik rips through the wall that separates the living from the dead, creating an uncharted passageway into Erebus, and allows the Shadow Walker entry, sending him off to complete the final stand as a guardian, to fulfill his duty, and to honour his father’s house in his taken oath.

  64

  WELCOME TO EREBUS

  Rushing headfirst through the violet portal, the immediate sting of the otherworld’s toxins take no empathy on Shane. It cares not about his oath or his conviction to his heart’s choice of a mate; it only knows he is unwelcomed and trespassing.

  There shall be no mercy today.

  Shane bites down on his lips as layers of his skin begin to disintegrate within the hostile world he has entered. He screams out into the void when it reaches too deep, alerting the inhabitants of his arrival. His heart heaves in his chest as his body tries to maintain consciousness in the overflow of pain coursing through him, eyes straining to focus on anything. But he catches it, a movement in front of him. Nearing a level of pain that no mere mortal is able to tolerate consciously, a hand reaches out and pulls him forward, thrusting him toward a swirl of fading coloured hues.

  In a moment of recognition, Shane lunges forward and secures his arms around the core of the limp body. He has found her. With nothing more to offer, he calls upon his last measure of defence and pulls her close within his shadow. It will not save her, or him, but it might bide them some time for a miracle.

  *.*.*

  The air around Cimmerian thunders and swirls counter clockwise, bubbling with prismatic bends as it folds in on itself to announce the arrival of the Elder of Zephyr as the portal opens and frantic bodies rush out of it. Vaeda, Ariah, Ethan, and Kaleb, all are in attendance.

  A strong wave of energy emerges to the side of them from the midst of the shadows as Orroryn, Arramus, Tynan, Broghen and Ashen step into view as well.

  “Cimmerian, what is going on here? Where is Shane?” Orroryn says, stepping nearer to him.

  Cimmerian bundles his hands in front of his blank face, twisting them as they spit strands of violet from within their crevices. He is unable to speak, caught in a trance, and lost in the ho
rrific snowball of events unfolding around him.

  “Cimmerian! Where is Shane?” he shouts, grabbing the Derkaz Elder by the shoulders to give him a shake.

  The Black Mage pulls his eyes away from the fissure in the ground, and blinks, surprised to find Orroryn face to face with him. He glances around and realizes the entire House of the Covenant of Shadows, minus the Hydor Elder, surround him, closing in and awaiting his answer. He shakes his head and speaks. “Erebus,” he says in a cool calm manner—almost detached from reality.

  “What do you mean Erebus?” Vaeda chirps, appearing next to them as confused as much as the rest of them about the answer.

  Cimmerian, regaining some of his mind, stops twisting his hands and his eyes focus once more on his peers. “He ordered me to open the portal to Erebus so he could save the girl, Gabrian.” His black eyes dance around the rescue party and then back to the crevice. “They are both inside.”

  Tynan, steps forward and grabs the dazed Black Mage, shaking him hard. “Why is Gabrian in there? What have you done?”

  “It was an accident…” he stumbles out the words with each jarring pull on his body. “I…”

  “There is no time for this, Cimmerian…” Orroryn places himself in between the terrified uncle and Cimmerian. “Open the portal again and leave it open. I am going in after them.”

  Ashen and Broghen step closer. “You can’t, it is impossible…no one who has entered Erebus alive has ever returned.”

  “There is one.”

  “You cannot mean…” Ethan presses his fingers hard against the bridge of his nose. Knowing it is a long shot, he edges closer and lays his hand on his friend’s arm.