The Shadow Warrior

by Aguirre, Ann

  Mags ran a few steps, then glanced back to make sure Gavriel was with her. On foot, she could easily outpace him, except that she was moving at less than half speed, constantly checking to make sure she hadn’t lost the scent. In that way, they edged along, heading back toward the sea, though farther down the coast.

  The land was craggy and rough, covered in yellow and purple flowers. Someone more botanically inclined might know their names. Mags passed through the flower field with a few sneezes and paused in astonishment when she saw the ruined keep rising in the distance, all crumbling stone that made Daruvar look modern.

  Beyond, the sea glittered blue-gray in the spring sun, the perfect buffer against incursion. The inlet didn’t look any kinder to ships, so the loyalists didn’t need to fear an armada sailing in under the cover of darkness, not that anyone had a navy these days. The Pax Protocols had let the Numina relax, content with the accords as they were drawn hundreds of years ago.

  “This is what’s left of Perlsea,” Gavriel breathed.

  She cocked her head and tapped her paw twice, hoping he’d read it as a cue to elaborate.

  “How much do you know of Eldritch history?” he asked.

  Mags shook her head. That would be essentially nothing.

  “Then I’ll give you the short version. Perlsea was the final bastion of the Silver Queen, the queen who last reigned over a unified Eldritch empire. When her vassals turned on her, she retreated here for her last stand. I suppose these bastards think this is a fitting place to do the same.”

  Mags studied the ruins, noting all the breaches in the walls. It wouldn’t be hard to get in there. Hunting all the men down might prove problematic, but she had an expert in silent kills standing beside her, and she wasn’t bad at stealth strikes either, especially in tiger form.

  A sudden thought occurred to her. That grave marker, would it have been the fabled Eldritch queen? If so, then she’d probably caught the scent trail of one of the loyalists paying homage to her memory, a pilgrimage to ask for her blessing on their endeavor. Yeah, they were shit out of luck in that regard.

  A sudden sigh drew her eyes to Gavriel, still crouched and staring down at the keep. The Seer’s retreat was the oldest structure in the Ash Valley holdings, and it didn’t compare to either Daruvar or Perlsea. She tried to guess what was troubling him, came up empty. Mags bumped his leg with her head and asked silently, though maybe that was pointless. He hadn’t proven particularly adept at reading feline expressions.

  This time, though, he said, “You’re wondering what’s the matter?”

  Mags nodded.

  “It’s… probably I shouldn’t tell you, as it’s one of our darkest secrets, but…there are stories. Have you heard them? That my people created the Golgoth to fight for us, our brutish foot soldiers.”

  That was the gossip, but Mags hadn’t put any stock in it. She tilted her head, waiting for him to go on.

  “That’s true. I ran across an account in the guild’s forbidden archives. I wasn’t supposed to be there, of course, but I’d just come into my gift, and there was nowhere I wouldn’t go, confident in my ability to evade detection.”

  Damn.

  Part of her wanted to shift so she could ask questions properly. The other half figured he’d tell her whatever he wanted, and her own words were extraneous. So she tapped the ground twice.

  He smiled slightly. “I’m not sure exactly what that means, but I hear you saying ‘go on’ when you do it.”

  She growled her agreement.

  “Anyway, after the Silver Queen’s fall, this place fell into disuse for a long time. Until House Talfayen began its…experiments, crossing Eldritch and Animari lines through unethical science. Do you take my meaning?”

  The Golgoth were created here? She wondered if there was a secret lab, if there would be failed versions of the Golgoth roaming the ruins, monstrous, mindless, and brutal. To get clarification, she’d have to shift, and that would burn energy she couldn’t spare. Plus, Gavriel probably didn’t know those answers either.

  He went on, “I’m telling you this because I don’t know what’s down there. It may be more dangerous than we anticipated.”

  This was all kinds of fucked up. The Eldritch made the Golgoth, and now they were following the path of their progenitors, kidnapping Animari to do gods knew what with them. She bared her teeth and snarled.

  Gavriel misread her response. “Yes, you can look after yourself, but you should know this much at least. As before, we should wait until dark to make our move. We’ll watch from here until then and note their movements.”

  To show that she had no quarrel with that plan, Mags settled on the rock, staring down at the ruins with laser focus.

  Don’t get comfortable. We’re coming for you, assholes.

  Gavriel missed talking with Mags instead of at her, but he understood why she was sticking to tiger form.

  He’d packed bottles of water, adding to the supplies she’d pilfered from Daruvar, so they had a strange, makeshift picnic while keeping watch. There was a boat moored at the base of the cliff, so the loyalists must know the safe way to traverse the treacherous rocks. That was also how they stayed clear of Talfayen patrols on the mainland.

  If not for the intel from Keriel and Ceras, he never would have suspected they’d claimed one of Thalia’s holdings, even if Perlsea was remote and abandoned. Actually, that made it perfect for loyalist purposes. There was historic gravitas on this soil, for multiple reasons, and as the saying went, it was always darkest beneath the lamppost.

  The waiting part of surveillance was the worst, and he envied Mags’s ability to curl up anywhere and go to sleep, leaving the actual observation to him. He had long-range binocs in his bag as part of his toolkit, and at first, there was no movement at all.

  In time, however, a few people emerged and moved across what would be the bailey, if the walls were intact. It looked like there had to be a substructure, an underground level. His stomach roiled at the prospect of confronting the dreadful deeds his people had done in the name of progress. No, not even that—from the desire to kill and maim without risking their own bodies. Even to Gavriel, that was despicable.

  Just as well Mags couldn’t ask questions right now or demand he speak in Eldritch defense, because he had no words to give to that cause.

  Silently, Gavriel watched and waited. He recorded movements and numbers, calculating their odds, though it was impossible to be sure how many enemies the sublevel concealed. There could be hundreds hidden below.

  In time, the sun dropped in the west, painting the sky orange and scarlet with ribbons of pink that faded to silver and then deepest blue. Mags roused when it cooled and glanced around with sleepy golden eyes. She looked at the starry sky and cocked her head at Gavriel as if to ask, Are we ready?

  “I know as much as I’m going to,” he answered. “I’ve seen at least thirty over the course of the day. Though I hate to suggest this, we should split up. You’ll have an easier time picking them off in the ruins. Inside what I’m guessing is a lab, it will be better lit with less cover. My gift should keep me safe, but…”

  She nodded her agreement; it seemed that she saw his point about a tiger roving the corridors inside. That would be too dangerous and fearing for her might distract him so much that he made a fatal mistake. While he didn’t fear death, he wasn’t quite ready to make his final bow yet, especially when it was preventable.

  “Whatever happens tonight, keep yourself safe. We’ll meet back here at dawn. If we haven’t finished them, we’ll find a place to lay low and make another run tomorrow night.”

  Depending on the numbers in play, they might need to deploy guerilla warfare tactics. He had no compunction about whittling away at the opposition and vanishing like a ghost. That was his wheelhouse, after all.

  Mags nodded once, rubbed her head against his leg, then she dragged her claws across the loose dirt and bounded off. Possibly he should have said something else, but it was too late. He lo
st sight of her swiftly, as she used rocks and scrub to her advantage.

  Kneeling, he saw that she’d drawn a heart, like the one she’d made with her hands earlier that day. He wished he could scoop up that dirt and take it with him because nobody had ever done anything like this for him before. It was absurd and adorable, and he did take a pinch of soil from the center.

  For luck, he told himself, trying not to feel like ten kinds of fool for having loose dirt in his pocket.

  Now it was his turn to move. No need to use his gift yet—ever since Zan died, he’d been painfully conscious that he was burning life energy when it kicked in. Sometimes Gavriel did wonder how much time he had left, as he’d once ghosted like a child gleefully tossing bits of colored paper on a fire. It wasn’t time to worry about that, either. Once he finished this last job, he could retire as Death’s Shadow and find some other purpose, something that didn’t leave him feeling bitter and bedeviled.

  The shadows cradled him as he crept toward Perlsea. Ancient stones, ancient mortar and broken bits of stained glass, tributes to a fallen monarch. Drawing closer, he heard the rumble of voices, male and female. Gavriel paused to listen in case their words should prove useful.

  “I’m telling you, we should go while the getting is good,” a woman said. “Vayne’s lost it. The houses are all swearing to that Talfayen whelp, and once she’s crowned, we don’t have a chance in hell of success.”

  “He’ll cut your tongue out if he hears you talking that way,” a male voice responded.

  “I’m with Vera,” someone else said.

  A chorus of general agreement rippled through the group. He identified five or six different voices from the talk. If there was dissent in the ranks, that might help, if only he could figure some way to use it.

  “I’ll run away with you, Vera m’love,” a new voice said cheerfully. “I wanted a place in the old lord’s glorious new empire, but there’s not gonna be anything like that and I’m sick of squatting in this pile of stones.”

  “Then die here,” said an immeasurably cold voice.

  Someone gasped, whimpered, and Gavriel heard the wet sound of a blade leaving a bloody wound. The woman was breathing hard, barely restraining her sobs. The dead man must have been important to her or maybe she feared taking a knife in the gut.

  “Anyone else care to defy me?”

  That must be Vayne.

  A rumble of negatives in response, most tinged in fear. The lot of them must stink of terror sweat, easy targets for Mags when he moved off. Making a snap decision, Gavriel followed him, hoping to learn the way inside the base. He skirted the rest of the group, who were whispering as the leader stalked away.

  Focusing, he activated his gift, and it whined in his ear, annoying as a bee, but now his footsteps felt light as air. He was a shadow, slipping after the one they called Vayne. There were no lights posted outside, and in the starlight, he evaded rocks that would trip him up, avoiding dry sticks and the odd tripwire, laid by a paranoid and possibly insane commander.

  He was deep inside the ruins now. So far, he hadn’t noticed any hint of Magda, who must be killing with remarkable stealth and efficiency. Gavriel spared a brief wish for her safety, then centered his whole being on tracking this monster to his lair. Someone who didn’t hesitate to dispose of his own men was exactly the sort of devil Lord Talfayen—my father—would choose to do his bidding.

  That was another reason he had to finish this, one he couldn’t bear to speak aloud, even to Mags. I must finish what my father started. But not in the way Lord Talfayen would have wanted. Gavriel would nail shut the coffin of that new Eldritch empire, where they ruled with an iron fist and treated the other Numina as chattel, and then bury it so deep that no other power-mad nationalist could exhume it.

  At the heart of the keep, which was more like a labyrinth from olden times, there was a set of heavy metal doors, set into the earth like steel teeth. There were no locks or chains; nobody would imagine that they were needed out here. He waited in the shadows as Vayne threw them open and stormed into the darkness below.

  Gavriel counted to a hundred and followed. Time for the killing to commence.

  27.

  Mags was outnumbered, beyond backup, and completely content with her situation, even if she was ass-deep in enemy territory.

  She waited for Gavriel to slip past those wandering the ruins, as her strike might put the facility on alert. Once his scent faded from the wind, she figured it was safe to start the carnage. Blood lingered in the air from the recent killing, though they seemed to be leaving the body where it was. It could be fear of their unhinged leader or disregard for a fallen comrade. Either way, they’d be joining him soon enough.

  There were ten loyalists moving around the ruins, solo, and in small groups. Most didn’t seem to be formally patrolling, and two were noisily having sex. They must have no fear whatsoever of being found. Tigers couldn’t smile, per se, but Mags showed her teeth as she crept up behind the man standing by himself, gazing out to sea. She leapt on him and snapped his neck with a powerful crunch of her jaws, then she hauled the body toward the cliff and let it fall. The birds would feast tonight.

  She lacked Gavriel’s ability to disappear in plain sight, and the night was bright with a waxing gibbous moon bright as a sky lantern, and the stars boosted its brilliance, leaving her fewer shadows to hide in. Using the half-fallen walls as cover, she moved on silent paws through the wreckage of Perlsea. Every second she recalled his warning that there could be monsters, though if they roamed the surface freely, it seemed like the nine Eldritch nearby might show a bit more wariness.

  The two finished hooking up, and one of them ambled away to smoke. Didn’t anyone teach you how bad this is for you? He lit up, the tip of the cigarette glowing orange as he inhaled, and Mags rushed, slamming him face-first into the wall. She bit through his spinal cord and then clamped down, dashing his head against the wall for good measure. There was a thump, but the quick kill prevented any outcry. It was a risk to drag the body all the way to the cliff, so she left him there, mostly hidden by a fall of stones.

  To her acute senses, the night reeked of blood, but the Eldritch probably wouldn’t notice. She had the taste in her mouth now, too sweet, but not viscous or tainted like those who used gray tar. Plus, these Eldritch were talking just fine, proving the Talfayen loyalists weren’t involved in House Manwaring’s plot.

  Eight more.

  She listened, creating a mental map of her targets, based on what she heard. The woman was looking for the smoking man. If she knew where her lover liked to light up, she’d be here soon. Mags crouched, waiting for the opportunity to attack. Steps crunched over loose rock, getting closer. When she glimpsed the woman’s profile, she struck, blindsiding her with a flank attack, and tore out her throat with her teeth. This was a wet, messy kill and she silenced the gurgles with two large paws, then she dragged the body to conceal it beside the other one.

  Mags spat, trying to get the taste out of her mouth. She’d been lucky so far, but it would be a mistake to count on that good fortune holding. And sure enough, as she turned, there came the sound of someone moving toward her quickly, steps more purposeful than anyone she’d encountered so far, and he was shining a light around too.

  “Where the hell is everyone?”

  She tried to get behind him, but his senses were sharp, and he whirled before she hit his back. Dammit, he has a weapon too. He was fast enough to get a round off, firing point-blank across her side. The thickness of her hide and fur prevented the bullet from penetrating, but the pain…damn. Even a graze stung like a bitch. She hit him with her full strength, knocking him down. As the gun clattered out of his hand, she swiped with both claws and slashed open his stomach, finishing with a clamp of her powerful jaws.

  But this wasn’t a quiet, tidy kill. Now there was a lot of noise heading in her direction, and she had six more to take out. Leaving the body where it was, she bounded toward the hill leading away from the ruins. If t
hey were foolish enough to give chase, she’d do better drawing them away from Perlsea.

  “What the hell,” a male voice exclaimed. “We’ve got multiple people down! Looks like a wild animal attack.”

  “What could’ve done this?” A woman asked, maybe the one whose love got murdered by their leader.

  “Maybe a bear?” the first person guessed. “If it woke up from hibernation hungry and there was no food…?”

  Dumbasses. The wounds she’d inflicted looked nothing like a bear attack, but better if they didn’t think this was a calculated invasion. That meant if she waited, they’d let down their guard. Nobody seemed to want to go out into the dark hills, despite the brightness of the night. Her side burned, but it was healing; that would cost her in terms of energy. With all the tracking beforehand, she’d already been a tiger for a while. Mags didn’t know how much longer she could hold on.

  When her wound sealed fully, she crept back toward Perlsea, pausing every few steps to listen. There were only four left here. Two had probably gone inside to report on the situation up top. Gavriel hadn’t said what he wanted her to do once she whittled their numbers down, so she’d make that call when the time came. The idea of leaving him on his own chafed at her, worry bubbling up around the seal she’d set on her emotions. Attachments only got in the way at a time like this, but when she imagined something happening to him, losing him like she had Brendan and Tamara—no, stop thinking about it.

  You have four targets left. Figure it out after they’re dead.

  Listening revealed their locations; they were searching in teams of two, which would make her task more difficult, but she’d killed way more at once. The main issue here was trying to avoid setting off a high-alert alarm, so loyalists all came flooding out at once. That rush might screw up whatever Gavriel was doing inside.

  Luckily, she had the strength to overpower two at once, even if they were ready. She just had to abandon caution and go for it. Mags chose the closest pair and stalked them, listening to their fearful conversation with a touch of amusement.