Institute of the Shadow Fae Box Set

by C. N. Crawford

  “Edin Na Zu!” he shouted, and magic crackled up his spine, searing me.

  I pulled my hand away, then lunged forward and stabbed him in the shoulder before he could continue the spell. He screamed.

  “What did I tell you?” I shouted. His blood had spattered over my sodden clothes. “I told you I would hurt you. And you saw what Ruadan just did to your friend, didn’t you? That was bloody terrifying. I think we can all agree on that point.”

  Ethan turned to me, his face pale, streaked with tears. “Stop hurting me!”

  “I will. Just tell me where to find Baleros, and you can be on your way.”

  The sounds of Boradrion’s screaming echoed off the walls. Still, no one was giving up their leader.

  Ethan stammered, “Edin Na—”

  I caught him in the left shoulder with the blade, and he fell to his knees, wailing. Why was he protecting Baleros with his life? These three didn’t seem like the most loyal and courageous of men.

  “Stop!” shrieked Ethan. “I don’t know where he is. He has three generals. They’re the only ones who know. One of them is meeting now—”

  “Don’t you tell her, Ethan!” Boradrion screamed. “You know what he’ll do to us!”

  Ethan sobbed, “Edin Na—”

  I kicked him hard in the chest, and he fell backward onto the wood floor. Blood pooled around him.

  “Where do I find the generals?”

  “Meeting now. Skull and Crossbones…” he muttered.

  “But this is The Skull and Crossbones….”

  “Edin Na Zu!”

  A ball of magic slammed into my thigh and pain rocketed up my hip. Another caught me in the side and agony danced up my spine. I landed hard on my back again, all the wind knocked out of me. Apparently, Dungeon Master Ethan was finding his mojo again in his last moments on earth.

  “Edin Na—” Ethan bellowed.

  Dark magic shot out of Ruadan’s fingertips, winding around Ethan. It bound his arms to his body, lashing his skin with thorns of magic. They sliced deeper into the human’s flesh, flaying him.

  My stomach turned. I’d never seen Ruadan unleash his most terrifying abilities before, and I had a feeling this was only the tip of the iceberg.

  “You’re not going to win this battle,” Ruadan growled. Frost and ice spread out over the floor, and my teeth chattered. Ruadan and his godsdamned rage ice.

  “You don’t understand!” Ethan sobbed. “Whatever you do to us, it won’t be as bad as what he would do!”

  Morbid curiosity got the better of me. “What would he do?”

  “Unspeakable torture; bodies broken, flayed, then healed again. Over and over.” Ethan’s words were nearly incomprehensible in his panic. “Then, turned into jackdaws.”

  Ruadan cut me a sharp look, one that said “prepare yourself.” Except I didn’t know for what, which made the warning a bit pointless.

  Before I could so much as grip the back of a chair, darkness descended, blooming from inside my mind until it coated my skull. Terror slammed into me like an oncoming train.

  I’d been hit with a little dose of Ruadan’s fear magic, and I wasn’t good at withstanding it. Adrenaline shot along my veins, and the wood floor fell out from beneath my feet.

  Chapter 73

  My bare feet pounded the forest’s soil, snapping twigs. The scent of death filled the air. I knew what I’d see when I got to the forest’s edge. Bile rose in my throat as I peered out from behind an oak.

  He’d done this. My father. He’d killed them all.

  I’d seen her red hair splayed out over the ground, the blood pouring from my mum’s mouth.

  Darkness washed over me like ink. He killed her.

  No. No…. That’s not what happened.

  This time, a new thought hammered in the back of my skull, a shrieking staccato note I tried to block out…. The terrible truth I’d been running from.

  That’s not what really happened.

  Screaming pierced my mind, drowning out all other thoughts.

  I was horrified to realize it was my own.

  The vision cleared, and I found myself on the floor of the pub, hunched over on my hands and knees. Nausea climbed up my throat, and I vomited onto the hardwood floor, my entire body shaking. The sickness had been rising in me for a while now, since I’d seen Ruadan rip a man in two with just a flick of his wrist. The memory of my mum’s death had pushed me over the edge.

  I’d stopped screaming, but the shrieks continued in my mind.

  Luckily, there hadn’t been much in my stomach, since I’d already puked once tonight. I scrubbed my hand across my mouth, more than a little mortified that Ruadan was here to watch me throw up from fear.

  Had the humans spoken? Had they given up their master? I had no idea, because I’d been busy throwing up on the floorboards.

  Thanks for that, Ruadan. Arsehole.

  When I looked up again, the shrieking in my skull had started to fade.

  “Three generals! Three generals!” Ethan shouted, nearly incoherent. “Look for The Skull and Crossbones!”

  “Ethan, no!” shouted Boradrion. That’s when I saw the tiny, red button dangling from his keychain.

  “Bomb!” I shouted.

  I didn’t even see Ruadan move, just felt the force of him slam into me, then us hurtling across the room. The wooden door splintered into shards as our bodies made impact. At this point, it felt as if my ribs had been cracked in multiple places.

  We crashed onto the ground outside just as the bomb went off, and my bones took another blow from the pavement.

  Ruadan’s heavy body covered me, practically crushing me. Heat from the explosion seared the sides of my arms, glass and wood raining all around us. I coughed onto the ground as the initial blast receded.

  I gasped for breath. It took me a moment to realize the flames had disappeared completely—no sign of an explosion whatsoever. My chest heaved, and Ruadan slowly shifted his enormous weight off of me. When I craned my neck to look back at the pub, it wasn’t destroyed as I had expected.

  Wincing from my broken ribs, I stared at the wooden walls and glass windows—all completely intact once more. The only thing that looked different about it was the crackle of glittering red magic before the pub’s dark facade.

  Then, a hot shock of pain, a shard piercing my chest. It took me a moment to realize what had happened—that one of my broken ribs had punctured my lungs.

  I gasped, momentarily unable to speak from the pain. Ruadan whirled back to face me, crouching down by my side. Agony speared my chest.

  “Where does it hurt?” he asked.

  “Ribs,” I gritted out.

  Ruadan’s fingers slid inside my damp shirt, his magic already meandering up my chest. As it skimmed over my body, my muscles began to unclench, the pain ebbing from my bones. Strange that someone with such intense healing powers could also rip a man in two the way he had. Ruadan, demigod of the night, could be either the most beautiful dream or the most terrifying nightmare, depending on how he felt about you.

  Which was exactly why I couldn’t let my secret get out.

  As the pain left me, I breathed out slowly, my mind flickering with the image of red hair spread out over dirt. That memory….

  Anger started to simmer. What right did Ruadan have to screw with my mind like that?

  “Better?” he asked, his violet eyes shining with genuine concern.

  “Fine,” I said, a hint of anger in my voice. “But we have to find the generals they were talking about.”

  I pushed myself up, my body groaning as I crossed to the pub door.

  I pulled the door open, finding that the pub looked much as it had when we’d first come in. Except now, three human bodies lay on the floor—two of them surprisingly intact, considering the explosion they’d just endured. Only Methrior lay ripped apart, courtesy of my charming mentor.

  I hurried over to Ethan and put my fingers to his throat to feel for a pulse. Nothing—no breath, no heart p
umping.

  Death came for them. Death will come for me.

  I clamped my hands over my ears as if trying to drown out my own thoughts. Ruadan had really screwed with my mind.

  Ruadan’s eyes pierced the pub’s gloom as he studied me. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “You shouldn’t toy with people’s heads and expect them to carry on like normal,” I snapped. “You don’t know what you’re messing with.” I will kill you all….

  Ruadan had gone completely still. “No, I don’t, because you haven’t told me. What are you?”

  This conversation had taken a dangerous turn. “I’m someone who’s good at killing, Ruadan,” I said grimly. “That’s why you recruited me.”

  “I recruited you because I thought you’d lead me to Baleros,” he corrected me, but his attention was already shifting somewhere else.

  I leapt over the bar to where they kept the alcohol, eager for a little buzz to calm my nerves. I snatched a bottle of Johnnie Walker off the shelf and unscrewed the top. I drank straight from the bottle, the booze burning my throat deliciously as it went down.

  When I looked back at Ruadan, his violet eyes pierced me to the core. “You will never defeat Baleros as long as you’re running from yourself.”

  But Ruadan, my beauty, a sane person runs from a monster.

  “Can we skip the psychoanalysis?” I took another sip of whiskey.

  His gaze flicked to the wall above an old, stone fireplace.

  “What were you looking at?” I came out from behind the bar and glanced in the same direction.

  There, on top of the pub’s fireplace, sat a skull and crossbones. Three skulls, in fact, grinning and gaping-eyed. Bizarrely, one of them wore a victory wreath. The text beneath the skulls read Mors mihi lucrum.

  “Any idea what that means?” I asked.

  “Death is my reward.”

  I shivered. “What is it?”

  “Copied from a cemetery gate nearby. St. Olave’s. The place is crammed with corpses from one of London’s plagues.”

  The date carved below the skulls read 1656.

  “What does it mean, death is my reward?”

  “It’s the motto of those who worship Adonis, Horseman of Death. They worship Thanatos.”

  My fingers tightened around the bottle. “His true name.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “I heard it somewhere,” I mumbled.

  “I think he’s working with Baleros.”

  A long, long sip of the whiskey. “He’s on your kill list, right? I saw it.”

  “He is. And his kin.”

  Slow, steady breaths. “Why didn’t you ever go back for him, to kill him? The Horseman of Death?”

  “I needed two things to kill him. Stones from the Old Gods, and an immortal army to help me capture him. I have the stones already. As soon as I kill Baleros, I’ll have my immortal army.” Ruadan crossed his arms. “We might meet him soon.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Like I said, he’s the one with the power to spread the Plague. And what’s more, the skeleton mural was a favorite of the death cultists. St. Olave’s Cemetery was one of their meeting spots.”

  I sucked a steadying breath. “Baleros would never allow his followers to worship anyone but him. If I had to guess, he’s simply forming his own death cult. He’s the god. That’s how it always is with him.”

  Ruadan stared at me for an uncomfortably long time, and I felt as if his gaze were seeing right into my soul.

  Then, he turned and started pulling a cloak off one of the bodies. “We’ll go disguised as Adonis’s followers. We’ll find Baleros’s generals. They’ll lead us to him.”

  Chapter 74

  Dressed in stolen cloaks, we arrived at St. Olave’s Cemetery.

  Dread twisted through me at the sight of the cemetery entrance. Fog swept in front of the old stone archway. Spikes jutted out above the ancient gate. A total of five skulls stared out at us from the top of the arch, three of them arranged just like the carving in the pub. Here, again, we found the Latin inscription—Death is my reward.

  Worshipers of the Horseman of Death.

  Ruadan leaned down to whisper in my ear. “First, we gather information. We need to learn exactly what’s going on here. Maybe we’ll find out about Adonis. Don’t draw blood until we need to. Understood?”

  “Got it.”

  I was starting to notice that Ruadan often felt the need to tell me, “Don’t start killing people right away.”

  From the gated churchyard, deep and rhythmic chanting floated through the air. A gust of cold wind rushed into my cloak, and the iron gate creaked open, welcoming us like a beckoning hand. We crossed through the archway, hoods over our heads.

  Just as Boradrion had said, a meeting was taking place here. A crowd of men in cloaks stood in the center of the old churchyard, holding torches aloft and chanting. I distinctly caught the word Thanatos.

  Would he be here? The Horseman of Death himself?

  Inside the gates, the grassy ground was several feet higher than street level, and it took me a moment to realize why this was. Layers upon layers of bodies lay below us—the perfect place to worship Thanatos. Among the grass and trees, graves jutted from the ground.

  No one seemed to notice us as we blended into the cloaked crowd.

  At the far end of the churchyard stood a broad-shouldered man, over six feet tall. A tendril of fear coiled through me. Could that be him—the Horseman of Death, standing before us?

  The crowd chanted his name, voices rising.

  Their leader reached for his cowl, and my heart clenched. But when he slipped off the hood, I caught a glimpse of red horns. I let out a long, slow breath. Torchlight danced over a demon’s sinewy features, and magic rippled off him, humming and buzzing over my body. Not the Horseman of Death.

  I sniffed the air. From what I could tell, everyone else besides the horned demon was human.

  Glowing with magic, the leader lifted his arms above his head and bellowed into the air, “We gather here to worship Thanatos!”

  Gods almighty.

  “Lord Gamigin, our leader!” the crowd chanted. “We gather here to worship the Lord of Death, Thanatos!”

  Lord Gamigin spread out his arms. “We gather here to offer a sacrifice.”

  Please tell me it’s not a virgin, unless it’s one of Boradrion’s friends….

  From the shadows, a goat bleated. A human hunched over, leading the goat into the cemetery. The goat bucked, and the man struggled for control of its neck.

  Lord Gamigin tutted. “Honestly, Gerard. Get control of that thing. Thanatos demands his blood sacrifices.”

  Gerard grunted as the goat kicked itself free, then barreled head-first into one of the cultists, knocking him over. The crowd parted as the goat sprinted out of the churchyard, onto the street.

  Silence fell over the churchyard once more.

  Gerard held up his hands. “Sorry, everyone. Bit of a difficult goat, that one. I’ll sedate him next time.”

  “Never mind,” Lord Gamigin’s voice boomed. “For centuries, the Horseman of Death has filled this cemetery with corpses. The Romans knew him as Dis Pater. Others know him as Adonis. We know him as Thanatos. He has left behind his legacy. The weak fear mortality; the powerful worship it. Only through death do mortal lives have meaning! Only through death are you granted a release from the torments of this world. All gods seek to rule the dominion of death. Only Thanatos does. Death is our reward!”

  A voice in the back of my mind whispered, Monster….

  Damp, frigid magic snaked over my skin, and I hugged myself under my cloak. The chanting was stirring something inside me, a magic old as death.

  “Thanatos! Thanatos!”

  At the sounds of their chants, a pit opened in my chest. His name—the true name of Death—rang in my skull.

  “I don’t think this is a good idea,” I murmured to Ruadan.

  “Why not?”

&nbs
p; I could hardly breathe. “This magic is dangerous.”

  “Are you joking?” Acid laced his tone.

  “Thanatos! Thanatos!”

  How could I tell him the truth?

  As the cultists chanted, dark magic blossomed in my body.

  I will steal your food and your breath.

  “Thanatos! Thanatos!”

  I am the seeping darkness that bleeds over long grasses….

  A strange tingling sensation shot down my shoulder blades, a power yearning to break free.

  “Thanatos! Thanatos!”

  I wanted to take to the skies, to unleash a magic that would ripple across the horizon like an atomic blast.

  “Thanatos! Thanatos! Thanatos!”

  I am the rot in your bones. I am the hunter, stalking you while you chatter.

  Power simmered in me, responding to their chants. But I had to stay in control here. My fingernails pierced my palms so hard I nearly drew blood.

  “Thanatos! Thanatos! Thanatos!”

  Around us, the humans were chanting louder and louder, the rhythmic sounds stoking my blood to a fever pitch.

  I am your final thought when the breath leaves your lungs. I am the sound of teeth hitting porcelain. I conquer all.

  As they chanted, cold rage slid through my bones. Ruadan had begun carelessly unearthing everything I’d tried to bury.

  “Thanatos! Thanatos!”

  They were chanting his true name.

  My father’s true name.

  I wanted to destroy it all.

  As a child, I’d been a tomboy. Knees covered in mud and scrapes. When my pale, blond hair started darkening to a girlish lavender as I’d gotten older, I’d cut it short and covered it with a hat.

  I am the tear in your heart, splitting open.

  At the time, when Ruadan had invaded our world with his fae cohort, I’d looked very much like a boy. That simple fact was probably the only reason Ruadan hadn’t tried to kill me yet. The only reason Ruadan hadn’t already pieced it all together. Demigods—especially male demigods—were so damned sure of themselves.