Institute of the Shadow Fae Box Set

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Institute of the Shadow Fae Box Set Page 39

by C. N. Crawford


  “Bloody hells. If that’s true, we need to contain that.”

  “I know.” I clenched my jaw. “What exactly is the Great Mortality?”

  “It’s the plague that killed scores of people in Europe several times over. The Black Death, some people call it. How the hells is he capable of this magic?”

  I nodded. “I have no idea. But you can put ‘dying of the Plague’ in your agenda book for tomorrow night unless we can kill Baleros between now and then.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “We once had a gorta here, guarding the gate, but you killed him. Do you know how hard it is to find a good gorta?”

  “Quite hard, I imagine, or we’d already have one,” I replied. “Why are we talking about this right now?”

  “Because we have no gorta. No guard on duty. No witnesses. You burned the letter. Now, we have only your word to go on. How convenient for you.”

  Ever since I’d stabbed Ruadan and run off with the Institute’s lumen crystal, Aengus had been a bit frosty. Apparently, he frowned on violent assault and theft.

  I crushed the ashes into the cobbles with my foot. “I don’t know what planet you’re coming from, but I don’t think there’s anything convenient about dying from the Plague, Aengus.”

  And with that stinging rebuke, I strode through the Institute’s blood-smeared door, leaving Aengus behind with the severed arm.

  Standing outside The Spread Eagle, I took a long sip of Maker’s Mark. Tension gripped my body. Pigeons cooed in the bridge that arched overhead, their calls slowly drowned out by the rumbling of a train.

  A reckoning was coming to the great city of London—and I had my own personal reckoning in store. Baleros was the only one in London who knew the truth about me, and he’d hold it over my head as long as he was alive. Blackmail I couldn’t ignore.

  It had been twelve hours since I’d found the note. During that time, Ruadan had sent out most of the knights on a mission to hunt down Baleros. He’d kept only two behind: Aengus and me.

  So far, no one had reported anything useful. All we had was bad news: the plague outbreak on the Isle of Dogs had been confirmed.

  As far as we could tell, Baleros had been moving from one place to another, never staying in one spot long enough to get caught. The last place we’d tracked him to was an apartment in Barbican. He’d left only a half a pack of cigarettes and a box of cereal, and the cloaked knights had zoomed off after him to the next location.

  In my case, tonight, I’d left the cloak at home. I was undercover in an ordinary pair of leggings and a sweater.

  Once upon a time—like, two weeks ago—the Shadow Fae were the only ones wandering around London in cloaks. I mean, who else would do weird shit like that?

  But now? There were these other cloaked people. Cloaked people who pushed people into oncoming trains, then jumped after them. In the Institute, someone had started calling them jackdaws because of their dark gray and black cloaks, and the name stuck.

  Who were they? We didn’t know. But the rest of London? They had a pretty good idea. They saw cloaks, they thought Shadow Fae. Simple as that.

  In other words, someone was framing us, and I had a strong hunch it was Baleros. Maybe—just maybe—one of these jackdaws could take us to their leader.

  I touched the lumen stone around my neck. A gift of magic from Ruadan—one that would help me move around fast if I found one of these cloaked men.

  From the pub windows behind me, a piercing song floated through the glass. A woman was singing karaoke—or, more accurately, screaming it. Alanis Morissette, over and over.

  I frowned at her through the fogging class. Bloody hells, woman. Just download a dating app and move on.

  Footfalls turned my head, and my heart sped up at the sight of Ruadan prowling toward me. Dark magic curled around him. The edges of his broad body seemed indistinct, like a photograph shot out of focus. But he still stood out to me, those violet eyes like a beacon in the night. Even with his fuzzy appearance, I felt acutely aware of every one of the thickly corded muscles under his dark clothes. Every movement of his called to me—the breathing, the purposeful gait—precise and focused under the fog of his magic.

  As he stepped closer to me, he began to look sharper. The distant streetlights washed over his perfect face. His serene beauty belied the ruthlessness underneath. I sipped my drink.

  When he reached me, he leaned against the wall. This close, his magic vibrated over my skin, making my toes curl. His magic was disturbingly addictive.

  “Hello, Grand Master.”

  “What have you found?” No greetings, just right to the point.

  “I haven’t seen any of the jackdaws yet, but I will. They stick near the Institute, and they usually linger around this overpass. I’ll see one soon.”

  “What did the note say?” Ruadan asked.

  Oh. So he’d been speaking to Aengus. “I already told your mate. It said we needed to hand you over by tomorrow night, or Baleros will unleash the Great Mortality. That’s the Plague.”

  “I know what it is. What else did the note say?”

  I’d been hoping to skip over that part. I took another sip of the whiskey. “What makes you think it said something else?”

  “You burnt it.”

  I was a terrible liar, so I decided to stick with a simple statement of fact. “You still don’t trust me.”

  His dark magic stroked my skin, a subtle reminder of his overwhelming power. It had a primordial feel to it that made my spine straighten.

  He took another step closer, his muscled form looming over me. “I can hear your heart race when you get nervous. And your cheeks flush.”

  I knew exactly how to throw Ruadan off.

  I licked my lips. “How do you know that’s nervousness and not lust?”

  His muscles tensed.

  I took one step closer, nearly touching him, and an electrical charge buzzed between our bodies. “You seem very in tune with my physiological reactions. There’s something very appealing about that.”

  His eyes darkened. I shivered as his magic dragged the temperature down.

  My jaw tightened. It didn’t seem my flirting had worked to distract him. “Look, Baleros knows things about me. Things I don’t want anyone else to find out. He’s blackmailing me. We give you over, or he tells everyone. That’s why I burnt it.”

  There it was—the truth. As much of it as I was willing to tell.

  “What things?” His commanding tone set my teeth on edge.

  Another sip of my whiskey, and I let the silence hang over us. Then, I narrowed my eyes. “Like you don’t have your own secrets. You hardly speak. I’m sure there’s plenty you haven’t told me.”

  Ruadan looked away from me, his eyebrows furrowed. Then, he nodded. I was dead on with the “you have secrets, too” theory.

  “Try to report back to me within an hour. If the jackdaws don’t lead to anything, we’ll track him another way.”

  Ruadan started to turn back to the Institute, but the pub door slammed open, and he froze. The heartbroken karaoke singer stumbled outside, and Ruadan turned to her. Rivulets of mascara ran down her face, and her lipstick had been smeared over her chin. She sloshed a bit of white wine out of her glass.

  Ruadan stared at the drunk woman, who was singing quietly to herself. His eyes darkened, body going completely still.

  I took another look at the woman. She was beautiful, sure. Big blue eyes, full lips, rosy cheeks. But apart from that, she seemed like an ordinary human—nothing remarkable or stare-worthy. She wiped a hand under her nose, then sniffled into her wineglass.

  Ruadan’s gaze was locked on her. A faint hint of violet glowed off him. His magic seemed to be intensifying, pulsing in delicious waves that skimmed over my skin.

  Pleasurable as it felt, it seemed he’d forgotten all about me, his eyes black as voids. Then, he closed his eyes, breathing in deeply. Was he smelling her? What the hells was going on here?

  Chapter 67

  I cros
sed my arms. “You were saying I needed to report back,” I said, my voice unnecessarily harsh.

  The black snapped out of his eyes, and he turned his violet gaze to me. The air seemed to glow around him, and the drunk woman simply swayed, staring at him like she was transfixed.

  “It’s just like I said,” I added. “We all have our secrets, don’t we?” I turned to the woman. “Can you piss off, now? It’s not safe out here. Shadow Fae all over the place.” Was I being a bit territorial? Perhaps.

  She nodded, her eyes still on Ruadan, then pulled open the pub door again and disappeared inside.

  Before I could say another word to Ruadan, darkness billowed around him, and he was gone.

  I surveyed the empty street. There hadn’t been many humans around in the past few weeks. Not since Baleros had begun his recent reign of terror with his own growing army.

  A couple rounded the corner—middle-aged, but dressed from head to toe in piercings and leather. As they walked, I tuned into their conversation.

  “Should we really be out so close to the Institute?” the woman hissed. “The Shadow Fae might murder us.”

  There it was again. All it had taken was a few black cloaks to confuse the entire city of London.

  The man glanced over his shoulders. “Keep it down, Lucy. They could be anywhere.”

  My plan was simple: find one of the cloaked buggers, then hurt him until I found out more. If my hunch was right, the jackdaws were connected to Baleros. We’d find him, imprison him, demand to know where Ruadan’s mother was. Then we’d kill him.

  Or, at least, that’s how it would all work out in my head.

  But things were never that easy, were they? And why weren’t there any jackdaws around here tonight? It was like they were avoiding me. Or avoiding something.

  I sniffed the air, and a faint, earthy scent hit me. Mossy and dank—a fae smell, but an unfamiliar one. Older than most fae, and a bit more coppery. It smelled of death. I slid my glass onto the windowsill. Maybe this was what they were avoiding.

  I started walking north, and as I reached an empty intersection, a blur of movement sent my pulse racing. I turned, catching a glimpse of a woman crossing toward a narrow alleyway.

  There she was—the fae I’d scented. She reeked of death.

  Just before she disappeared into the alleyway, she turned to look at me. Immediately, I could tell I’d been right about the fae thing—long, metallic talons; rapid, animalistic movements. When her eyes met mine, my pulse quickened. Her skin was the color of bone, and a dress hugged her body, its leather the color of dried blood. Long, black hair hung down her back, and her eyes had the blue-gray hue of a murky lake. She opened her mouth, and for just a moment, a forked tongue snaked out. Then, she pivoted, marching onward.

  I wasn’t sure what was happening, but this was a lead worth chasing. An ancient, powerful fae like this one wasn’t an everyday occurrence.

  I pulled a knife out of my bug-out bag as I walked, wishing I’d come armed with a sword instead. It’s just that swords tended to ruin the whole ordinary human undercover vibe.

  I followed her through the alley, which opened up into another street.

  When I reached the mouth of the alley, the fae turned back to look at me, murky eyes landing on my face. Across the street, three men in white football shirts were chanting a song, drunkenly stumbling into each other. One of them carried a pint that sloshed on the pavement.

  The fae’s attention darted back to them. She wasn’t interested in me.

  I stared as her form began to change, her skin scaling over. A sharp, knobbled spine protruded from the back of her dress.

  My pulse raced faster. The men in the football shirts hadn’t even noticed her. My fingers twitched on my knife hilt as I waited to see what she’d do next.

  I had my answer when her shockingly long tongue shot out, lashing the three men across their faces. The attack left deep, red gashes in their skin, and the men staggered, shouting now.

  I took a step closer. I didn’t want to intervene yet—I wanted to find out exactly what she was.

  The men seemed to be frozen in place. From fear, perhaps? Whatever it was, it didn’t look as if they could move.

  The lower half of the fae’s body then shifted, elongating and growing scales, becoming a tail with a rattle that then slithered across the road toward the men.

  I touched the lumen stone at my neck, then narrowed my focus to a single point near the fae, willing myself to summon its magic. Electric power crackled up my spine. I got ready to leap, and—

  The fae’s head whipped toward me, tongue lashing out. She struck me in the neck, ripping through the skin. As soon as her tongue made contact, my muscles began to seize up, body freezing. I stood immobilized as she turned her attention to the three men again. Her tail wrapped around them like a ribbon encircling a bunch of flowers. Their eyes went wide, faces red as she squeezed their chests. Garbled grunts rose from their throats. They couldn’t breathe, and with each gasp, she seemed to tighten her grip even more.

  She was squeezing the poor bastards to death. I tried opening my mouth to scream, but even my mouth was frozen, and I couldn’t move my vocal cords. The only sounds in this deserted street were a low hissing rising from the ancient fae and the strangled gasps coming from the men. Gripped around the waist, they made a gruesome bouquet of humans, eyes popping.

  The fae’s body glowed as her tail constricted further around them. Dark veins shot through the men’s skin—a poison from her tongue, perhaps?

  With an iron will, I forced my neck muscles to move just a little, then my eyes. I looked down at my own body, nauseated to see dark toxins pulsing through my veins. I felt as if I were rotting from the inside out. Wrath pulsed along with the poison. What right did she have to do this to me?

  When I forced my eyes up again, two of the three men had died—suffocated in her grasp. The third, horrifyingly, was being crushed against the corpses of his friends. I opened my mouth again to scream, and this time a tiny sound emerged from my throat—a little squeak. But what good did that do me? All I could do was stare as she crushed the breath out of the last man, his face now purple.

  As soon as the life left his eyes, her tail slithered away from the rotten bouquet. She transformed back into her legged form.

  I stood there, frozen, like an idiot.

  I understood what she was a fomoire, a fae who fed off suffering. A living nightmare. In fact, that’s where the word came from—night-moire. If I hadn’t been here, she’d probably have prolonged their suffering just to feed off it. But now she had a second target. Me, immobilized by her poison.

  Her head swiveled back to me, body glowing with a pale blue light. She stalked closer, high heels clacking over the pavement. Her jerky gait reminded me of a fox walking on its hind legs, and she seemed like an animal wearing a human suit more than a fae.

  I strained, desperate to grip the knife at my side, desperate to thrust it into her chest.

  Three crushed humans, and me unable to move. This day was not going well for me. As she moved closer, I could see the pale, greenish tinge to her porcelain skin.

  When she was just a few inches away from me, I braced, expecting her tail to come out again. To my surprise, she pulled a silver cigarette case from her pocket. She opened it and pulled out a smoke. She lit it, put it in her mouth, then offered the case to me. “Smoke?”

  I could hardly say no, could I? I mean, I literally couldn’t say anything at all.

  She cocked her head, smiling. Then, she jammed a cigarette in my mouth, just between my gritted teeth. She lit it, and smoke curled into my eyes, making them water. I hated this woman.

  “There,” she trilled. “Now you look relaxed.”

  The cigarette fell out of my mouth, along with a thin stream of drool. Lovely evening I was having so far.

  Right now, I pretty much wanted to rip her throat out with my bare hands, but the immobilization put a kink in that desire. Why wasn’t she crushing m
e to death?

  She blinked at me. “They were enjoying themselves. I had to make them suffer. You understand, don’t you? You know what I am. I feed off pain.” She leaned in closer, sniffing me. “But you were already suffering before I got to you.”

  Rage simmered. What was she talking about?

  A smile curled her lips as she looked me up and down. “Guilt. Loneliness. Fear. Not of me—no. You’re afraid of yourself. Afraid of people knowing the truth.” She closed her eyes, breathing in. “It’s lovely.” When she opened her eyes again, her body was growing brighter. “It’s all right, darling. I’m going to kill you, and then you don’t have to worry anymore. I’m here to end your suffering.”

  Bitch, please.

  I closed my eyes, summoning the darkness from within. Cold wrath flooded me. Yes, the snake lady was terrifying—but so was I.

  Chapter 68

  These beasts, crawling over the earth, acting like gods. She needs to learn her place.

  The voice in my mind wasn’t quite my own. It scared me, but I knew it would save me.

  A blast of dark magic pulsed out of my body like a toxic cloud. It pounded through my blood, pushing out her poison.

  Here it was—my dark side. The part of me I had to keep secret. I was the fury of the gods, and I had my own venom.

  The darkness had exploded for just a few moments. Then, the magic had snapped back into me again. My body shook and nausea gripped my gut. I hunched over, vomiting up my whiskey onto the pavement.

  Holy crap. Had that actually just happened? Had the real me nearly come out? Panic had such a tight grip on my mind that I nearly forgot about the fae.

  I’d nearly lost control.

  I looked at the ancient fae, who lay flat on her back—hurt, but still breathing. My little burst of dark magic had flattened her. More importantly, it had freed my muscles.

  Fighting nausea, I twirled my knife, my sights locked on her.

  I smiled. She hadn’t seen this coming.

 

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