by S. A. Moss
And with this plan, that was a pretty long list.
Finally, when I felt like I was about to explode from nerves, a hush fell over the room. A tall figure appeared from a side door of the gym, flanked by two beefy men.
Yep, bodyguards.
They approached the dais as thunderous applause echoed around the large space. The two men took up position on the back corners of the platform as Reyes stepped up to the podium. He adjusted the mic up a bit, but still had to stoop to speak into it, his hands grasping the sides of the lectern as he inclined his head.
“Hello. I’m so proud to see each and every one of you here.”
His voice boomed through speakers spaced along the rafters, and the crowd cheered even louder. Next to me, the woman in the DePaul sweatshirt had tears streaming down her face.
What the hell? This really was a freaking cult.
Then Reyes began speaking. He told the crowd that there was a great change coming, and that those who embraced the change would inherit the Earth while the resisters perished in flame. He promised them happiness, wealth, and everlasting peace.
As he talked, the crowd began to respond as a single unit. They cheered, laughed, and sighed at exactly the same time, as if they’d all exchanged their individual brains for a small chunk of a larger, shared one. It was eerie, but it made perfect sense. This was how cults functioned.
When I found myself almost reacting along with the crowd, I clenched my fists until my fingernails dug into my palms. I could barely feel the pain, but it helped ground me anyway. I shook my head.
Man, this guy is good. His voice was almost hypnotic.
“Are you ready?” I whispered to Alex, as the crowd cheered around us.
“As I’ll ever be. I can’t wait to stop this guy from talking.”
“You can say that again,” I murmured fervently. “Hold on.”
As Reyes continued to speak, his voice growing more and more impassioned, I reached out my awareness toward the men behind him. They were human, not supernaturals in disguise. I hoped they didn’t get hurt in this, although the fact they were choosing to support a man like Reyes made me wonder if they deserved it. It was easy to get a sense of their energy, and I set about weaving binds around each of them.
I waited until both were in place before I gave a sharp tug on the aether, wrapping the binds tight. Both men jerked straight, arms pinned to their sides.
“Now!” I shouted, launching myself toward the dais.
Reyes’s eyes met mine, a look of shock passing over his face as I raced forward. I threw myself at him, wrapping my arms around his waist and sending him sprawling away from the podium. The crowd murmured agitatedly, like an injured beast. Alex dashed up the other side of the dais and helped me pull the meat-puppet Reyes to his feet. Then he grabbed the blond man’s left arm and twisted it behind his back, pinning him in place.
We’d agreed to use as little of my aether manipulation as possible. The whole point of this was to prove that the Fallen were pulling one over on humans, so we needed to keep the focus on that. If I started unleashing blasts of aether, I’d just scare people and give them more reason to distrust me. Besides, the wraith wouldn’t be able to use any aether while he was in Reyes’s body, so that kept us evenly matched.
Leaving Alex to wrangle Reyes, I stepped up to the podium. Shocked faces gaped at me from the crowd. Some looked angry.
“This man is not what he seems!” The mic screeched as I shouted into it, my voice blaring from the speakers on a half-second delay. Sucking in a calming breath, I tried to bring my pitch and volume down as I continued. “He tells you that your ‘saviors’ will reward you for your allegiance when they come to Earth, but that reward will be nothing but death and pain. He claims to be human... but he’s lying to you.”
I nodded to Alex. He tightened his grip on Reyes, a look of concentration filling his face. A second later, Reyes shuddered. His mouth dropped open in a low moan.
Abandoning the podium, I stepped over to Reyes and spoke low in his ear. “We know what you are. Leave this body.”
His wild eyes flashed to me, white visible all around the irises. “I can’t. Not unless it dies.”
“Yeah, we’ll see about that.” I gestured to Alex. “Hold him still and keep him mortal.”
Alex nodded, tightening his grip on Reyes. I put my hand on the man’s chest and reached out tentatively, feeling for the energy inside him. There were two distinctive patterns of aether—one must be the wraith and the other the real Reyes.
Please let this work.
I hoped it would be similar to when I unraveled a bind. Except instead of pulling at something woven around someone, this time I was pulling at something woven into them. Adele had been highly skeptical it would work, arguing that even if I were able to force the wraith out without killing the host, Reyes’s mind would already be destroyed. He might live, but he’d spend the rest of his days in a diaper babbling at a padded wall. But in the end, she’d conceded that it was a risk we had to take.
In my mind’s eye, I began to pick apart the two separate energies, trying to find a weak spot in the connection between them.
Shit. This is way harder than undoing a bind.
I gnawed my lip so hard I tasted blood, trying to block out the rising volume of the crowd.
“Hey! It’s her!” Suddenly, one voice boomed out above the others. Male. Angry. “The one from TV! She’s trying to kill him!”
16
Come on, come on…
I begged the aether to obey, but the wraith refused to separate from the human body. Reyes gasped and jerked under my touch, and Alex had to torque his arm higher to keep him still.
“Cam! Watch out!” Alex shouted.
I looked up just in time to see a burly man charge out of the crowd toward us. Damn it!
Throwing out my hand, I sent a blast toward the man—I tried to keep it small, but my nerves were so on edge that I unleashed more power than I’d meant to. He flew backward, colliding with the people behind him. They went down, creating a domino effect around them as panicked people fell and twisted frantically, trying to regain their footing.
Pulling my attention from the crowd, I refocused on Reyes. If we didn’t get this wraith out of him right now, the entire mob was going to turn on us. Hell, they might turn on us anyway, but I clung to the belief that if they saw what Reyes really was, they’d realize their “saviors” were the ones they should fear.
As screams cut through the gymnasium, I pressed both hands to Reyes’s chest, pulling at the wraith’s aether with all my might.
Something ripped.
Reyes crumpled to the ground.
The entire gym grew deathly quiet. Alex stood above the prone figure, chest heaving, but even his breaths were silent.
All eyes settled on Reyes’s body.
It didn’t move. There was no telltale twitch of limbs as the wraith extricated itself from its fallen host. Just a dead man lying on the floor.
My skin chilled. Panic, guilt, and disappointment churned in my gut, making me nauseated.
I’d killed him trying to force the wraith out. And because the wraith had been mortal, it had died too—still inside of Reyes.
The two bodyguards I’d bound earlier still stood like statues at the corners of the stage. Their eyes were wide, and one was screaming at me, but I couldn’t distinguish his words over the shouts and yells of the crowd. The man who’d charged me earlier had finally righted himself. He stared at Nathan Reyes’s body in shock.
Before I could process what was happening, the man drew a gun from the back of his waistband and fired. The bullet hit me in the side, sending pain tearing through me. I stumbled backward, spinning halfway around.
“Cam!” Alex leapt over Reyes, running toward me. I threw up a shield just as the man fired again. I’d never used an aether shield against a bullet before, and for a moment I feared it wouldn’t work. But the bullet careened away from Alex, hitting the wall behind us as sc
reams echoed off the high ceiling.
He knelt at my side. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” I groaned, clutching my side. “We need to get out of here. Now.”
The room was in chaos. Many people stampeded for the door, but an equal number of them seemed inclined to stay and fight. The man with the gun raised it again, Without thinking, I hurled another blast of aether at him. He flew backward, hitting the floor with an ugly crunch.
I grabbed Alex’s hand and pulled him off the dais, sprinting for the exit at the side of the room. Several men who looked like linebackers ran forward to cut us off, and we dodged to the left.
One of them grabbed Alex’s arm. In a smooth motion, Alex wheeled and hit the guy in the face, then slammed him to the ground. Another one tried to tackle me, but I blasted him with aether. His body changed course midair, blown backward.
The remainder of the crowd surged toward us as Alex and I raced along the perimeter of the room, back toward the door we’d come in. Without even looking, I threw blast after blast sideways, keeping the howling mob at a distance by throwing the leaders back.
“Cam!” Alex called from two steps behind me. “You’re hitting them too hard!”
It took a second for his words to register. The wound in my side burned, and my mind was cloudy, with only one thought piercing through the fog—these people were minions of my father. Of Akaron. I’d tried to help them, and they’d tried to kill me and Alex. They probably still would if given the chance.
“They’re just humans!” Alex’s voice was more urgent now.
I looked toward the center of the room. People had stopped charging us. Many were gathered around fallen bodies, helping people who’d been hit by the brunt of my blows. My legs slowed as my stomach twisted. I’d done that? Shit. I hadn’t even meant to. I had no idea how to fight humans without doing too much damage.
And I was supposed to be protecting them, not fighting them.
My pace slowed even more, but Alex grabbed my arm, urging me forward. “They’ll be okay,” he panted.
Would they? Some of them looked unconscious, and I hoped that’s all they were. I felt bad enough for killing Nathan Reyes, even though that had been unintentional. But if I let my anger get the best of me and attacked innocent humans, how was I any better than Sirius or Akaron?
Guilt twisted in my gut as we threw open the doors and burst out into the warm night. Sirens wailed in the distance. Two cop cars were parked at haphazard angles out front. The front doors were open, and officers braced behind them with guns trained on us. I clamped down on the instinct to throw an aether blast at them, instead sending up a large shield in front of us.
Alex and I skidded, making an abrupt turn, and dashed down the sidewalk. I let the first shield drop and built another one behind us as we ran. The wound in my stomach still burned, sharp pain ricocheting through me with every footstep.
We sprinted flat out for several blocks, turning down side streets at random.
Finally, when the sound of sirens faded and we were surrounded by quiet houses on a small tree-lined street, we slowed. Alex was actually breathing hard for once—he was in such good shape that he usually made me feel like a slacker, even with the extra boost of endurance I got from being undead—and he bent over for a second, resting his hands on his knees.
“So, that didn’t go according to plan at all,” I said, my voice thick with disappointment.
“No kidding.” He straightened slowly, sucking in deep breaths through his nose. “Is Reyes dead?”
“I think so. I couldn’t get the wraith to let go. When I pulled too hard, I snapped something.”
“Shit.”
“Damn it! I really thought I could do it. I’ve gotten so good at unweaving binds,” I said bitterly.
“You can’t do everything, Cam,” Alex reminded me, his voice soft.
“I know.” I sighed. “I just don’t like feeling powerless. I wanted to do something, and it totally backfired.”
We set off down the street again, at a slower pace this time. I kept my ears perked for any sound of sirens or pursuit, but none came. The cops probably had their hands full dealing with the mess we’d left behind at the rally.
I glanced over at Alex as we walked, shame flooding me. “Um, thank you for that back there, by the way.”
He tilted his head. “For what?”
“For reminding me that they’re just humans. I get so furious at my dad and Akaron, and at anybody who helps them.” I shook my head, biting my lip. “I didn’t mean to hurt them that badly.”
His green eyes shone in the light of the street lamps. “I get it. But just because humans are easier to fight than demons, doesn’t mean they’re the ones—”
Alex broke off suddenly, his footsteps halting.
“What?” I perked my ears and scanned the street, but didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary.
Then pain lanced through my body.
I gasped.
It wasn’t coming from my stomach wound, which was already almost healed. My gaze flew to Alex. He was doubled over, arms wrapped tight around himself.
“Alex?”
He let out a pained moan. “Something… is wrong.”
17
I knelt by Alex’s side, scanning his body for injuries. Had he gotten hit by a bullet that slipped through my shield? Had the wraith inside Reyes done something to him? Had he been injured in the fight as we fled the building?
“What is it? What’s wrong?” I asked frantically.
He looked up, his face pale as the moon in the dim light. Little beads of sweat dotted his forehead. “I don’t know. It feels like it did when I got taken to the Shroud. But… that’s not possible.”
Ice flooded my limbs. That shouldn’t be possible. He was here, solidly on the earthly plane with me. Could my father somehow be trying to drag him back to the Shroud? My gaze darted around, searching for the auras of any hidden supernaturals. There was nothing. We were alone.
I looped my arm around Alex’s waist and ducked under his arm, helping him stand. The movement must’ve hurt because he sucked in a breath. “Can you walk?”
“Yeah,” he gasped.
We stumbled a few blocks until we hit a larger street. Then I leaned Alex up against a building and darted into the road, flagging down a passing cab. I’d never get over the indignity of being a powerful supernatural being forced to rely on public transportation, cabs, or stolen vehicles to get around. I could manipulate the aether of the universe—was it too much to ask for some damn teleportation powers too?
As soon as the cab pulled over, I helped Alex inside then turned to face the cabbie. “Kenmore and Buena.”
He muttered an affirmative and merged back into traffic. Worry beat in my chest like a drum, and I cursed the dead cult leader for holding his rally in Logan Square. It would take us at least twenty minutes to reach Reeva’s ghostly home under the L tracks.
I grabbed Alex’s hand and squeezed it. “Reeva will know what do to,” I promised.
God, I hope that’s true.
Alex didn’t improve on the cab ride, but he didn’t seem to get any worse either. Still, my anxiety climbed through the roof with each red light and stop sign that slowed us down. When the cabbie finally pulled over on the quiet street corner near the Red Line tracks, I reached into Alex’s back pocket for his wallet.
“Hey, now,” he muttered, raising one eyebrow weakly. “That’s a bit forward, Miss Prentice.”
My nerves wouldn’t let me smile at his joke, but the fact that he was joking at all was a little reassuring. That’s probably why he’d done it, actually. To try to keep me calm.
I pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I just can’t control myself around you, Mr. Knight.”
Grabbing a couple of bills from his wallet, I paid the cab driver. The red taillights disappeared down the street, leaving us in almost total darkness. The side streets weren’t well lit, and the strip of land under the tracks wasn’t lit at all.
“Reeva?” I called, as loudly as I dared. “Reeva, are you here? Something’s wrong with Alex. We need your help!”
“Pipe down!” Her voice belted out of the darkness, startling me back a step. It was completely unfair for her to be that loud while insisting everyone else be quiet.
“Sorry!” I whispered. I rested Alex against one of the beams supporting the tracks overhead. He leaned back, grimacing in pain. When I faded over to the mid-plane, I found Reeva standing right next to me, peering intently up at Alex.
“Doesn’t look good,” she muttered.
“It hit him out of nowhere. We, uh, got in a fight with some humans and had to run. People were shooting at us; I thought maybe he got with a bullet, but I can’t find any wounds on him.” I bounced on the balls of my feet, watching her examine him. “Can you tell what’s wrong? Do I need to give him more of my life force?”
The thought of doing that again made my stomach dip, but I steeled myself. If it could save Alex, I’d take the risk.
Reeva held up a finger to my face, shushing me. She reached out to caress Alex, only this time it looked like she actually stuck her hands inside his chest. My stomach lurched again. The only other time I’d seen a supernatural do that was when the wraith had taken possession of Silver’s body right before I died. It made me queasy just thinking about it.
Alex jerked and shivered, but seemed otherwise unaffected by her invasion. I didn’t think she could possess a body like a wraith could, but I tensed anyway, ready to pull her back if she tried anything funny.
Her morphing features were almost impossible to make out in the darkness, but I thought I saw her brows draw together. “That’s what it is. Knew there was something different.”
“What? What?”
Do not shake the ghost, Cam. Do not shake the ghost.
She withdrew her hands from Alex’s chest, turning to face me. “Couldn’t tell what it was before. The Shroud changed him. He no longer belongs to either plane.”