He paused, his gaze sweeping over my face. I recognized the look in his eye. I'd recently become acquainted with it in my kitchen.
Warren tucked a hand into my long, wild hair, jerked me against his hard body, and kissed me.
I knew Lila waited for me, and I knew some kind of nightmare had befallen Headquarters. But I didn’t want to worry about that. Not when his full lips were so hot and soft, and my body still ached from our interrupted sojourn earlier.
Warren finally broke the kiss, his lips brushing over my cheek as he said, “I don’t need a plastic surgeon. You’re a damn impressive woman all on your own.”
I flushed, heat rising on every visible surface of my body. Thank Senka for my dark skin.
Warren winked. “Wait till the guys back at the encampment hear my girlfriend can stitch wounds. I’m gonna look cool.”
I didn’t respond, though a response wasn’t necessary as he draped an arm over me, and we entered the building.
Girlfriend? That was a tall order. I wasn’t entirely sure I'd come to terms with the fact I'd almost boffed a shadow touched at my kitchen table. Add “girlfriend” to the mix, and I was one Ducati ride away from a cut-and-run.
For the second time that night, I called an elevator for him. In the dim garage lobby, he slumped against the wall. His eyes had gone dark with pain, and his lids were heavy. I shook him.
“Hey. Don’t pass out. Did you hit your head when we crashed?”
He peered at me with one eye. “Maybe a little.”
“Dammit. Why didn’t you tell me?”
He rallied and looked down at me. His free hand trailed down my cheek. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Now I know you have a concussion.”
“Shut up.” He kissed me again, slowly but thoroughly.
When he pulled away, I’d forgotten where we were. I wasn’t sure my feet were even firmly on the floor anymore.
“Okay. Maybe not so concussed,” I murmured.
The elevator still hadn’t arrived. I tapped the button again and realized the little orange light inside wasn’t activating. I pressed an ear to the cool metal door and was met only by silence. Above my head, a light flickered.
I gazed up at it, realizing for the first time it was the auxiliary power light. The main LEDs were black.
“Something’s wrong,” I said.
“Half the Hollow is at gunpoint outside the doors,” Warren pointed out. “The something-is-wrong ship sailed a few blocks back.”
He had a point. “We're going to have to hoof it. I can glamour your leg to ease the pain. Temporary, but it will get us upstairs.”
He nodded, his face set. He'd called me impressive, but the truth remained that he had a damn hole in his leg and hadn’t once whined, complained, or begged to stop. In fact, he’d made constant jokes about it and even attempted to seduce me. Of the two of us, he was the more impressive.
I pressed two fingers to the skin beside his stitches and called my magick. My ice spell had taken its toll on my admittedly short reserves, so I had to really focus. My body wasn’t okay with multiple uses of magick back to back.
I had enough juice to ease his pain, though probably not for long. Thank Senka we only had to go up two flights of stairs.
The lobby looked the same as it had looked from the outside, only several dozen SEA uniforms blocked the view of the ever-growing crowd outside.
“It’s just an earthquake and a power outage. What the fuck is everyone freaking out over?” I wondered out loud.
Warren didn’t respond. His jaw clenched as he focused on every step beside me.
My magick clearly hadn’t lasted long.
I waved down the first uniform to catch my eye: a human SEA in a pristine uniform. He looked like he’d just joined the force that day, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
“I need you to take this gentleman to Dr. Webster for medical attention,” I told the kid. “He has wounds on his legs and a possible concussion. Then find him some clean clothes and set him up in a suite on the third floor.”
The officer noted Warren’s black eyes but didn’t comment. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Com me with any updates, and let me know what room.” I paused, eyeing him. I didn’t know his face. His shiny brass nametag said KWAN. “Do you know who I am?”
He straightened, his brown eyes widening. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. Then you know how to find me.” I gently extricated myself from Warren’s body, and the young officer stepped into my place. I thanked Senka for his gentle touch on Warren. Good kid.
Warren reached for me. “Wait, where are you going?”
“I have to find Lila.”
The officer shifted beneath Warren’s bulk—the poor kid looked ridiculously small beneath the shadow touched. “The Rein and Reina are below, ma’am.”
“Below?”
“With Senka.”
I thanked him. I didn’t think anything of his wording. Of the way he’d said “With Senka.” After all, she was real enough that to stand on the edge of her grave was to be with her.
I texted Lila on my Com. I’m here.
Meet me at the elevator.
The elevators doors opened, sparking with white magick. Lila appeared, her hands spread as she held the doors open.
I stepped in beside her. “Magick?”
“The power’s out, as if you couldn’t tell. We’re running on personal reserves for the moment.” She closed her fists, her magick manipulating the doors shut.
We descended in silence. Lila bit her lip, a habit I’d watched her fight to break over the past few years. She’d worn an angry hole in her bloodless bottom lip.
“Is it Everett?” I asked. I felt like I always asked this.
“That’s not even the half of it, Relle.” Lila’s shoulders slumped. She closed her eyes and swayed on her feet. “Life is changed forever. We’re in trouble.”
“If you need to leave him, I’ll help you,” I promised her.
She shook her head and lifted red-rimmed eyes to me. “No, Relle. This has nothing to do with Everett.”
A happy ding — obviously unaware of the power outage — announced our arrival on Senka’s sub-level. The doors whooshed open on Lila’s command.
A crowd of people encircled the edge of the grave in an odd, hushed silence. Faces turned to us as we passed, and the crowd parted. SEA officers and SEB agents lined the exterior. I recognized the interior circle as twelve of our council members—the thirteenth having been murdered last night. Everett stood beside the bent and broken outer fencing. His angular face was hard as stone.
Glass crunched beneath my boots as I followed Lila to the edge of the grave. It looked like every light that had once illuminated the cavern had shattered, leaving a layer of sharp edges over everything.
I stopped beside the railing. The solid metal bars were bent and twisted, as if a giant had folded them with a flick of his wrist. I followed every other gaze around me into the grave below.
Lit by the single working chandelier high above our heads, a young woman stood on the edge of Senka’s grave. The ground around the tomb had been demolished in the earthquake, exposing the dark interior of Senka’s resting place.
Her empty resting place.
The woman gazed serenely ahead. Her long black hair floated as if electrified around a face achingly beautiful and as pale as a moonbeam.
“Who is that?” I whispered. But I already knew the answer.
Lila took my hand. The strongest fae in the Hollow shook as she replied, “That is Senka.”
17
I clung to Lila’s hand, my gaze on the woman below.
“No. That isn’t... No.” I shook my head, only realizing after a few seconds how stupid I looked, like a dog shaking off water. My body had undergone some kind of change, my skin boiling but my insides cold as marble. Lightheaded, I clung to the broken bars of the fence, sure my knees wouldn’t hold me.
“Sh
e won’t respond to anything,” Lila said softly. “Many of us have taken turns calling down to her. She doesn’t move.”
“She’s been buried beneath the sand of the Hollow for a hundred years,” Everett said gruffly. “Of course she’s fucking wacko.”
“Don’t speak of her that way,” Lila snapped, hate in her pretty blue eyes as she looked at her husband. I’d never seen her look at him that way.
Something about her frightening intensity steadied me. I squeezed Lila’s hand. I’d forgotten who needed the support, me or her, until she reminded me. My reina relied on me to take charge.
I took two deep breaths and released them before I asked, “Has anyone gone down to her?”
Lila lowered her eyes ashamedly. “No.”
“Why not? She’s our savior.”
“She’s poisoned the Hollow,” a councilwoman spoke up behind me.
The voice might as well have been Haseya Nez warning me Senka Hollow is poison. My anger-rage reared its beautiful head. “No, Acura has poisoned the Hollow,” I snapped over my shoulder, not bothering to look at her. “I could see how you might mix the two up.”
I returned my attention to Lila. “Senka has lain beneath our Hollow and taken the brunt of Acura’s darkness for a hundred years. You might have a little more respect for her than leaving her alone down there when she needs us.”
I let go of Lila’s hand, my rage transferring from the faceless councilwoman to my reina. I was pissed she hadn’t stood up for Senka, that she hadn’t gone to her. I threw a leg over the broken fence.
Lila grabbed me by both arms. “No! It’s not safe! Gods, Relle, the entire tomb is demolished!”
“Let me go. It’s just Senka.”
“Relle...”
I clutched the rails, vividly aware of the long drop behind me. “Five years ago, you told me you’d never love another person the way you love Senka. What changed, Lila?”
She let me go as if my skin burned. “The quake destroyed so much. What if you get hurt?”
“At least Senka won’t be alone,” I said haughtily.
I turned and leaned out over the grave. Senka didn’t move.
I let go.
The temperature dropped noticeably with my fall. I hit the concrete, my knees bending to take the impact. My palms slapped the dirt and steadied me from pitching forward onto my face. I rose and brushed the dirt from my hands.
This close to Senka, I could feel the darkness billowing from her. I gathered my wits about me and began my process of bricking up against the sharp prick of Acura’s power.
The sun rose over the Res like a brilliant orange pearl birthed from a shimmering horizon. I was seven years old in the dust with my legs crisscrossed while the hot desert floor burned my skinny ass. I had one knee pressed against Rice’s, our skin darkened from summer and our bones knobby: the kind of half-formed skeletons kids become before they grow up.
My other knee rested against my dad’s.
Daddy was shirtless, in blue jeans and moccasins. His muscles were already lined by sweat, painted by the ever-present red dust in the desert air. He traced a square into my palm, each line slow and precise. “Each side has a purpose.” He mimicked the movement on Rice’s palm. “Four sides to hold out the darkness.” He leaned to trace the square over my heart, his rough, callused finger scratchy on my skin above my dingy tank top. I watched, breathless, as he repeated the motion on Rice’s skinny bare chest.
“Imagine you are building a waterproof wall. You must place each stone exactly. You must fill the cracks so that nothing may flow through. Close your eyes, Maurelle.”
I hurried to obey. The same command didn’t come for Rice, which meant—as usual—I was always one step behind him. His quiet determination and uncanny way of anticipating everything around him often placed him worlds ahead of me. Mama always called him her Indigo Child—an old soul in a young body, wiser than his years.
The same boy went on to break his arm doing a keg stand at seventeen. But that’s neither here nor there.
I waited in the comforting darkness of my own mind, listening for my father to continue. Seven was a strange age. Utterly certain I was invincible, but afraid of the monsters under my bed.
Daddy's hand rested on my head as he intoned, “Now. Build.”
My walls had only strengthened with time and practice, until nothing could breach them. Now, cradled by the weight of the destroyed cavern, I winced at the force of the darkness emanating from Senka. I could feel it battering me, but it couldn’t reach me.
Senka’s eyes remained fixed on a distant point as I approached her. She was so beautiful she made my heart ache. Her ebony hair hung down her slender back to her bottom, strands dancing on an invisible current. A long dress of royal purple cradled her curves to the top of her bare feet, leaving her delicate shoulders bare.
The legends told us she’d once had eyes a beautiful, crystalline lavender. But now, they were completely black. She had no pupil. No iris. No nexus. Just deep, deep onyx.
I stopped with only inches between us. “Princess?”
No reaction.
I slowly reached out and took the princess’s hand. Above me, an astonished murmur tittered from the watching crowd. Soulless hypocrites. While I kept the Hollow safe from those who would hurt us, Senka lay in the darkness doing the same thing. I didn’t fear her.
I watched the moment she registered my touch. Her long lashes fluttered, and she refocused, her eerie black eyes finding my face.
“Princess Senka.” I lifted her hand and kissed her fingertips. Her skin was cold. “Let me help you.”
She didn’t respond. I felt her acquiescence on the air, on my skin, as if she’d granted me permission metaphysically.
The tomb hadn’t been constructed to be accessed. When Rasha placed her daughter beneath the soil of the Hollow, she was never meant to emerge.
But the damage from the quake had folded layers of rock and dirt into convenient steps. I scaled the largest of the piles, keeping hold of Senka’s cold hand. She floated along behind me, seemingly unbothered by the uneven terrain. I wondered if the earthquake had awakened Senka… or if Senka awakening had caused the earthquake.
At the top, I had to let go of her to heave my body over the ledge. I worried she would forget me with the disappearance of my touch, fall back into that eerie, vacant gaze. But when I turned to reach for her, she was already holding up both arms like a child, waiting for me to lift her.
The princess was light as a feather. I hauled her gently over the broken railing and set her on her feet. “Watch the glass, Princess.”
Her black gaze found my face. She said nothing, and she didn’t let go of my hands.
Lila came to us and sank to her knees before Senka. “Princess. It is really you.”
Senka continued to look at me, as if she hadn’t even heard Lila. Her stillness seemed preternatural.
“I think she’s...” I trailed off, trying to find the right description. “I think her senses are dimmed. She didn’t acknowledge me until I touched her.”
Lila reached for Senka’s hand.
Senka stepped away before Lila could touch her. She hid behind my body. Her impassive face didn’t change; her eyes fixed on the distance again.
Lila stood and tried to mask her hurt. “Something is obviously wrong.”
“Yeah. Something,” I agreed. “Or a lot of things.”
“We need to convene upstairs.” Lila glanced back at the crowd. No one had moved since we emerged from below. I had a feeling they could feel the darkness pouring from Senka and were too scared to approach her for fear of becoming shadow touched. “Can you stay with her, Relle? We’ll keep a guard on the elevators above and below to keep you safe.”
“We need to convene” was Lila-speak for “Shit's hit the fan, and we need an emergency what-the-fuck-do-we-do council meeting.” She could pretend it wouldn’t last long, but I was well-acquainted with our government. If I agreed to sit with Senka, I’d be ther
e for hours.
I thought of Warren upstairs, hopefully with Dr. Webster cleaning the grit out of his road rash. He had a warm, clean bed waiting for him, which meant he was as safe as he could be for the moment.
Like I had ever been able to say no to Lila. When she turned those baby blues pleading, I might as well give her my gun. “Okay. Fine. I’ll stay with her.”
Senka and I found ourselves alone in the small, functional office used by the on-duty tomb guards. It wasn’t the most comforting of spaces—bare white walls, scuffed linoleum, and chairs older than the Hollow with butt imprints in the cushions all the way to the metal.
I guided Senka to the least ghastly of the rolling chairs and gently seated her. Her dress rose with the movement, exposing intricate black tattoos that crisscrossed her feet and rose up her ankles.
“What are those?” I asked, pointing to her feet.
She met my gaze but didn’t respond.
I blew out a breath. “Okay.”
I grabbed a chair and rolled it over the linoleum to sit before her. One of the guards had left behind his lunch—a half-eaten sandwich of indeterminate nature, a bag of chips, and an apple.
I nicked the apple and rubbed it on my thigh, realizing as I did so that my blue jeans were in shreds around my bruised and bloody leg. I must have looked like a mess to Senka. I was covered in white plaster from the collapse in the apartment. There was blood on my tank that wasn’t even mine. I probably looked like a prisoner of war.
I glanced at Senka and realized her gaze wasn’t on me—it was on the apple. She watched my movements, back and forth, back and forth. I held it out. “Are you hungry?”
She lifted a small hand, palm up. I placed the apple in her palm, curious to see if she would actually eat it. If she remembered how.
She was so still. Until her eyes moved, she seemed nothing more than a statue. She stayed like that, palm out, cradling the apple for a long moment, her black, black gaze on mine.
The darkness beat against my internal walls. I breathed deeply, encouraging my walls to strengthen against that ceaseless, endless waving.
The Shadows and Sorcery Collection Page 10