ONE
Jordan
THE REVEREND IGNORED THE BODIES.
“Who else have
you told?” He leaned into his cane, pinning the security guard with a look.
“Purgatory? City security?”
“No one,
Holiness.” The guard hastened back when I approached, his eyes widening as they
locked on me.
I was out of
uniform, weapons were concealed, and I didn’t have the word “Templar” tattooed
on my face, but Reverend Greaves hadn’t received such a reaction. That earned
the guard a harder look.
He had the thick,
ropy muscles of a laborer and the thicker gut of a drinker. His weathered face
was pale in the harsh light. His arms crossed over his body, instead of hanging
loose and ready to act. And he couldn’t keep still. Nervous twitches, like a
hand darting up to scratch his chin or the subtle, rhythmic swaying of his
weight on and off his heels, made it look like he was barely fighting back the
urge to bolt. His eyes flicked into the apartment, where a fresh splash of
vomit pooled by the door.
It was fear. This
might be his first real taste of death.
I dismissed him
again, slid past them, and turned my attention to the dead.
A filthy window
provided most of the light inside the small apartment. It lined up with gaps
between the buildings, giving a narrow view of the city of Ash, gray at midday
with tones of neon green and blue reflected off the glass. The place had been
stripped for reconstruction, leaving one wall as bare metal and another just a
frame. The floor looked like old cement, dusty where it wasn’t stained brown
with filth.
I grimaced
involuntarily. The air reeked of vomit and shit, with an unpleasant undertone
of blood, but there was no hint of decay. Not yet.
“Has anyone been
in here?” the Reverend was saying.
“The guys on this
project ain’t been paid in three weeks.” The guard’s voice sounded strained.
“It’s been empty
that long?”
“I check in every
day. Make sure the doors are locked and everything’s where they left it.”
It wasn’t locked
this time.
A teenage boy in
faded, ill-fitting clothes had died bound to a chair with the same black tape
that sealed his mouth. Bloody lacerations covered much of his torso, but the
dark, gaping line across his throat had likely finished him.
My eyes glazed a
little as I walked past him, and I shook my head to clear it.
“Who has keys?”
the Reverend said. “Apart from yourself.”
Shattered pieces
of a chair lay strewn across the room, starting by the dead youth’s feet.
Ripped tape clung to its limbs along a trail to the dead girl who had broken
out of it. The single, brown stab-wound on her chest had probably killed her,
delivered by the older woman that now sprawled by her side.
The dead woman
slouched against the wall beneath the window. She looked older than the other
two. No color broke the solid black of her tailored suit, but brown stains
marred the white handkerchief spilling from her pocket. A knife lay on the
floor by her side, its blade wiped clean.
Her cause of
death was less obvious than the others. Short brown hair brushed her shoulders,
disheveled and crusty. Blood smeared her neck, but I couldn’t see the wound
that had produced it, even when I drew closer and the shape of fingers became
clear. A messy handprint on otherwise unmarked skin.
The Reverend continued his
questions while I looked deeper at the bodies, the way only a Chanter could. It
wasn’t sight, precisely. It was an awareness of emptiness where there should be
fullness, or darkness where there should be light.
There was nothing. In any of
them.
I stepped around
the woman for a better view, but without moving her body I couldn’t see more.
My gloved hands wouldn’t make prints, but any disruption of the scene might
leave traces for city security to find. The footprints I might add to those
left by absent workers were risky enough.
I leaned closer.
Blood matted her hair, but the room was too dark to make out the source.
“Your message
wasn’t clear,” the Reverend said. “What made you contact the church? City
security deals with crime, and Purgatory handles the dead.” And the church was
not welcome in the Edge.
“The girl’s
hands.” A tremor shook the guard’s voice. “Don’t y’all deal with the monsters?”
I crouched beside
the girl’s outstretched arm. A shock of pain lanced down my back, and I froze.
But it quickly faded to a dull ache.
Her hands were
open, making the unnaturally long joints obvious once I knew to look. I reached
for them but stopped short of touching. The subtle stretch of her fingers
turned into lengthened nails, curving at the tips into short, skeletal claws. A
few dark strands of hair were tangled in the dry blood that stained them.
“Give us a few
minutes.” The Reverend ushered the guard out. “After we leave, call Purgatory
like you normally would.”
After the door
closed, I triggered the scanning systems implanted in my head to watch the next
room. If the guard called or messaged anyone, or even just muttered to himself,
I’d hear it. The precaution probably wasn’t worth the headache it might cause,
but we could never be too careful in the Edge.
I dug into my
coat pocket for the tablet the Reverend had provided. A few clicks, and the
camera opened. I started a scan for their ID chips, snapped a picture of the
dead woman’s face and connected to the church database to run it.
“These people
didn’t die days apart,” I said.
The old man’s
shoes scuffed a heavy, irregular rhythm behind me. “What about her hands?”
I glanced up. My
body was blocking his view, so I stood and stepped back. “Looks like a
revenant.” I snapped pictures of the other two faces and ran them.
“What do you see
here?”
The cuts to the
boy’s body were sloppy, mostly shallow, and his attacker hadn’t focused on any
sensitive areas. They had meant to make a bloody mess more than to cause that
insufferable kind of fear and pain that would break anyone. Eventually.
“Jordan?”
I needed to
focus.
“The teens were
her prisoners,” I guessed. “Maybe they owed someone, or she thought they knew
something.” I pulled my eyes away from the boy and gestured at the dead woman,
though the tale was better told by the lacerations that marred his body when
the girl’s only injury was the death blow. “She tortured him to control the
girl. Got what she wanted, or decided she wasn’t going to, so she cut the kid’s
throat and stabbed the girl.”
“Then the girl’s
body stood up and killed her,” he finished for me.
I waved at the
blade on the floor. “She had time to clean the knife but not to use it again.
The revenant got to her too fast, but it didn’t eat or rampage. It killed her
and dropped. Like the rest.” Gooseflesh rose under my sleeves.
“Get more data,”
he said.
My jaw clenched,
but I didn’t respond. Playing investigator wasn’t my area of expertise, but the
last few weeks had brought enough variations of this scenario that I knew what
data he meant. I used the tablet to record the temperatures of the bodies, and
to take more pictures for the church’s investigators. It was better than
getting sidelined while my back healed, but a new and intrusive awareness of
the Reverend’s cane never ceased prodding me. The old Chanter hadn’t chosen
when to retire from the Templar Order.
The tablet beeped
at the return of the first search results, and I pushed the thought aside as I
read them. “We’ve been watching her. The older one.”
“Suspected tag?”
the Reverend said.
“No.” Fire crept
through my chest. “She worked for Vicks.”
The file listed
other infernals too. Most were known associates or sons of Emil Vicks, and many
were dead, but one name overshadowed them all.
Caleb Dumas.
Vicks had killed
the man, his own son, shortly after I’d learned his name. Objectively, his
death was a good thing, but it was a disappointing conclusion to over six years
of searching. I’d never stop resenting the fact that someone else had ended
that rapist piece of shit.
“That’s three.”
The Reverend’s voice dragged me back.
“Looks like a
pattern.” I cleared my throat, but the fire didn’t fade. “She was suspected of
moving here, into the Edge, after Vicks died.”
“Working for
Carmen?”
“Unclear.” I kept
my voice neutral. “A few deep ID scans caught her in the area. We have facial
recognition history, but it was flagged as limited.” Another notification
popped up on the screen. “Nothing on the teens, and they’re chipless.” Born
outside the system. They would’ve had no chance in life, even if it hadn’t
ended so early.
The Reverend
rubbed his chin and said something.
“Talk to the
Inquisitor,” I interrupted whatever it was. “Hawthorn needs to be confined to
the tower until we figure this out.” I gestured at the girl’s hands.
I thought I
caught a hint of curiosity on his face until I looked him in the eye. His
expression smoothed. “For what reason?”
“Three people
connected to Emil Vicks are dead. She could be number four.” It wasn’t my job
to care anymore, but Gwyn Hawthorn was still valuable to the Order.
“You need to do
better than that. The other three worked for him, but Gwyn was abducted.”
I didn’t need to
be reminded. “Any connection justifies caution.”
“He had you shot.
You itching for a vacation already?”
My back tensed,
and the dull ache sharpened. “That was incidental.”
“You assume.
Either way, it’s a connection.” His expression was unreadable. “I need more
than that, unless you want to be confined to the tower indefinitely too?”
I turned off the
tablet and pocketed it.
“Don’t give me
that look,” said the old man.
“The rules are
changing.” I schooled my expression. “Or we’re wrong about what they are. We
need to be careful.”
“Agreed. How does
that relate to Gwyn, specifically?”
“She refuses to
learn what ‘careful’ means.”
That time he gave
me the look, but he turned toward the door without a response. His cane scraped
the floor as he said, “We’re done. This guy needs to call Purgatory before
another revenant rises.”
The walls and
flooring on the way to the stairs were stripped down and incomplete, and the
ceiling was stained and dusty, but once we stepped into the stairwell, the only
signs of construction were stacks of materials and equipment left on the
landings in between floors.
As we neared the
bottom of the steps, I fished the sunglasses out of my coat. The Reverend
opened the door after I put them on. He didn’t say anything about it, and we
stepped out into the shadow of the building and the gray light of a hazy day.
Our sedan waited
near the end of the alley. Settling into the driver’s seat brought another
minor flash of pain and provoked a few profane thoughts. I kept them to myself
as I stared at the Edge’s relatively open view of the sky, and a feeling like
exposure, like vulnerability, crept through me. The rest of Ash, its soaring
towers and sheltering skyways, was out of view.
“Everything
okay?” said the old man.
I tapped through a few menus on the vehicle’s dash, and all the windows darkened. “Of course.” The motor started in near silence, with a rush of damp air and the wan glow of dashboard lights. “I just can’t stand this side of town.”
TWO
Gwyn
I HAD TO ROLL UP my sleeves so they wouldn’t swallow my gloved hands, and my pants sagged over the tops of my boots, but the Inquisitor had insisted I wear the uniform. For my protection, of course. The reinforced and insulated fabric would reduce my risk of burning alive if things got “exciting.” The armored plates would stop most rounds if an impossibly strong infernal – who could drain the life out of me with a thought – pulled out a gun instead.
It was standard
Templar armor, except the white ouroboros of the church was missing from my
back. A lot of people would have objected to me wearing that symbol, myself
included. I had met too many Templars to feel otherwise.
I glanced at the
woman in front of me. Some of them were alright though.
“What’d this guy
do?” I tried to tighten the armor’s side straps and fumbled around the seat
belt. Squirming into ill-fitting body armor in the back of a van was not how I
had planned to spend my afternoon. Neither was sober.
“Murder,” Hanley
said.
“That’s a
relief?”
Mariela Hanley
sat across from me. The Templar’s glossy hair was bound up in a short, thick
braid, and her near-black eyes were set under long, thick lashes that looked
like she spent a small fortune on mascara, even though she wasn’t wearing any.
Bulky armor obscured her slender, athletic build, but I’d seen her carry a
grown-ass man on her shoulders during training. Plus, she could get stuff down
from high places without a stool, which was a useful feature in a potential
friend.
She leaned forward,
pulled the seatbelt aside, and yanked one of the straps on my armor into place,
easing the pressure it had put on my shoulder blade. “I’ll fix it for you when
we stop.”
“Thanks. Did the
Inquisitor say why this is so fucking urgent? I’d just opened a bottle.”
Hanley tilted her
head. “A bottle?”
“I was thirsty.”
“It’s barely
three o’clock.”
“I slept in. It’s
never too late to get started though.”
It was supposed
to be a joke, but she didn’t even fake amusement. She just did that
bunched-up-eyebrow frown people do when they’re afraid calling out your shit
will make it worse. “Are you ready for this?”
I didn’t answer.
“Yes” would be a lie, and “no” might get me executed.
“Gwyn?” she
pressed.
“Why wouldn’t I
be?”
Fifteen days.
Well, fifteen
days and eight hours, give or take how long I’d resisted getting out of bed.
That was how much time had passed since I suffered the last vestiges of the
seemingly insatiable hunger.
Sixty-five days
since I learned it wasn’t burritos my body craved.
Okay. Not only burritos.
A little over
nine weeks had passed since I was forced to kill a woman I’d called my friend.
That same morning, I had found out I was an infernal, just like her. But I’d
been taught, without my knowledge, how to survive without feeding on other
people’s lives.
I had been
ignorant, but now I knew. And knowing changed everything as far as my heart was
concerned.
It changed
nothing about my situation though. I was a weapon, trained by the church to
kill infernals and sentenced to die if I ever disobeyed, tried to escape, or
let on that I knew what I was. Up until now, I had only ever executed
murderers, but my orders weren’t coming from the same place anymore.
I scooted in my
seat but couldn’t get comfortable, so I tugged down one side of the crooked
armor. Didn’t help. “How did he kill them?” I said.
Hanley grimaced.
“Coroner reports weren’t in my orders.”
“I mean was it
just ‘slurp—they’re dead’? Or does he play with his food?”
She leaned
against the wall of the van. “Does it matter?”
The vehicle
lurched over a speed bump. Her shoulders shook as the van rocked, but she
didn’t take her eyes off mine as she waited for my answer.
It did matter,
but I couldn’t explain why.
Once it was clear
I didn’t mean to respond, she unhooked her belt and turned across the gap
between us to fall into the seat beside me. “Let me fix your hair.”
“This mess isn’t
my fault,” I said. “I barely had time to put on pants.”
“You were
drinking and pantsless at three in the afternoon?”
“I barely had
time to put on these pants. Would you
be drinkin’ in these pants?” They were actually very comfortable. “Wait.
Templar. You probably would.”
She fixed me with
a look that was simultaneously stern and pitying. “Your ponytail would be
uncomfortable in that helmet.” She nudged my shoulder until I turned sideways,
then slipped the tie off my hair. Her fingers ran through it, tugging it
straighter and picking out tangles before she separated sections for a braid.
The helmet she
was talking about sat beside a small bag on my seat, looking glossy, black, and
intimidating in its soulless anonymity.
I unzipped the
bag while Hanley worked on my hair. My khukuri sat on top of my clothes, its
wide, forward-curving blade hidden in a plain black sheath. Without pulling it
out, I wrapped my fingers around the weapon’s handle. Touch-sensitive pads in
my gloves perfectly mimicked the feel of the nonslip grip.
I’d practiced
with that blade for years, almost daily, but my grip felt weak. My armored
gloves were designed to preserve flexibility and strength, but the weapon
didn’t feel like it fit my hand anymore.
I released it
with a sharp exhalation and dropped the bag by my thigh. My fist opened. Then
closed. Then I ran my fingers down my armored forearm, over the ache that
marked the fresh scar from a shard of broken glass.
Hanley tied the
braid. “Your arm’s barely out of that cast.”
“It feels like
new.” I clenched a fist, then opened it. The feeling of weakness didn’t fade,
but if conviction wouldn’t give me strength, fear could be motivational too.
“If I scrub the
mission, it won’t count as disobedience,” she said. “If you’re not ready, tell
me now.”
“No.” I glanced
over my shoulder at her worried expression, reflected on the tinted window.
“I’m ready.”
Daylight passed
into patchwork fluorescence as the van descended into an underground parking
garage. We were on the wrong side of downtown, and the lights were broken or burnt
out as often as not, leaving everything washed in the neon glow of the much
better maintained ads. Trash on the pavement glimmered pink and green and
purple under rust and carbon stains on the weathered walls.
The first couple
levels were filled with cars, but we descended to the fourth, which was nearly
empty, and the Templar driver parked near a stairwell. When I didn’t
immediately move, Hanley undid my belt buckle and opened the door.
“Get your head
where it belongs,” she said. “Don’t want to lose it.”
Her tone was
soft, but her point stung because I didn’t think she was warning me against the
tag. She was one of the few people who knew about my death sentence—she’d been
asked to carry it out, but declined the order. She never spoke to me about her
reasoning, and I never asked. If she knew why I’d been sentenced to die, or why
my execution was delayed, nothing she’d said or done revealed it.
She nudged me out
of the van, followed after, and gave me no time to orient myself before she
started yanking at straps and rearranging my armor.
“You’ll get
through this.” She gave the last strap a tug, then slapped my shoulder.
I leaned back
into the van, snatched the bag off the seat, and pulled out my khukuri so she
could help me attach the sheath to my back. They’d included a stun gun with my
gear, and I hooked it to my belt, but if I got desperate enough to use it, I’d
probably already failed. I’d seen an infernal recover from one of those in a
matter of seconds.
It hadn’t saved
him in the end though.
The memory made
me pause, but only for a moment. I had a lot of practice shoving such thoughts
aside for later, and I figured crying didn’t count if no one saw you do it.
I picked up the
helmet. More compact than my bicycle helmet, it was vented to release the
warmth of the electronics inside. It was standard issue Templar equipment. But
I wasn’t a Templar, and my job had always required looking like I wasn’t
dangerous to anyone, so I’d never worn anything like it.
I put it on, and
the visor slid down over my face with a hissing snap. It smelled like soap and
upholstery and fit wildly better than the rest of the uniform.
“Move fast,”
Quin’s voice filled my ears. “They’re already talking.”
Quin was a church
tech, and one of the few friends I had left. He always made sure I had access
to the newest games and the best equipment to play them on, no matter how few
cents I had to my name. And he’d walked me in and out of a dozen life or death
situations without getting me killed, so bonus points for that.
“How do I talk to
you?” I said.
Hanley gave me a
wry look, but a hint of concern drew up her brows. Maybe realizing how
unprepared I really was for this job.
“We see what you see and hear
what you hear,” Quin said. “You should be chanting anyway. The Templars with
you don’t officially know what you’re here for, but they’re not idiots. Get
moving.” He started giving more specific directions, but I looked to Hanley.
“We’ll be behind
you,” she said. “But if you’re exposed, don’t listen to the Inquisitor. Just
run.”
Good advice, but
I’d probably die before I got the chance to flee if I flashed my ass at another
infernal. Or I’d survive when I shouldn’t, revealing what I was to an Inquisitor
who didn’t have any reason to refrain from killing me for it. Neither option
appealed, so I’d just have to not get exposed.
The door to the
stairwell creaked when I opened it. At the top of the steps, a man and woman
leaned against the wall, legs entwined and arms around each other. They paid no
attention to me as they whispered, but I got enough of a look at the woman’s
face to recognize a Templar I’d seen around the tower. The man’s button-up
shirt left little room for a hidden weapon, but her long coat was bulky enough
to arm them both.
There was only a
flight and a half of stairs between me and the bottom, but my heart was already
racing by the time I reached it. I put my hand on the doorknob but didn’t turn
it. Instead, I closed my eyes and drew into myself, forcing my breath to slow
and stopping the parade of fears and what-ifs.
“What’s the tag’s name?” I
said. Knowing would make this harder, and the fact he was an infernal didn’t
make it easier anymore. But killing should be hard.
“Lucas Alexander,” Quin said.
I opened my eyes, relaxed,
and let myself see.
They were still a ways off,
and it took a moment to pick their faint spirits out from the background noise.
The door blurred details, but my spirit eye could see through both it and the
concrete wall beyond. A figure of white light, and one of red, stood together
on a level empty of both cars and other people. Beyond them, two other
stairwells were carved out in shades of gray and lined with the blue thread of
electric wires. Templars guarded those too.
I wondered if the infernal
could see them. Or if he’d even looked. He might have seen me already, and I
didn’t know what would happen if he was watching when I started to chant. But I
had no choice, and time was running out.
The ethereal syllables of the
chant flowed off my tongue, turning to ice that crept over my skin and made my
toes curl when it repeated at the fourth beat. The chill was the same whether I
was half-naked or, as I was then, covered head to toe in heat. Neither of the
distant figures appeared to react, though the red one shouldn’t have. The color
of her light marked her as human, and as far as I knew, I was the only person
in Ash who looked like a human but could see like an infernal.
And heal like one.
And break steel handcuffs
like one.
I could probably do much more
terrible things than that, but I refused to think about it.
A few weeks of practice had
made it easier to balance my spirit eye with the physical world, but it was
still distracting and often confusing, so I let it go before I turned the knob.
I tensed, half expecting the door to creak like the one upstairs, at the same
time, I softened my chant until it was barely loud enough to call a whisper. I
had seen what Lucas Alexander was – the chant would hide me from him – but caution
never hurt.
I broke into a light jog, as
fast as I trusted my boots to stay quiet on the pavement. They were designed
for stealth, but the chant would only hide me from the infernal’s eyes. As far
as I knew, the only sound it obscured was its own unearthly tone.
The lowest floor of the
parking garage was clear of cars, but empty bottles, paper bags, cups, and
cigarette butts collected near corners and along walls pitted with holes. As I
moved away from the door, I passed a small field of shell casings. So at least
someone had a use for the area.
I slowed to a walk at the
edge of a partition wall that hid me from their view. Lucas Alexander wouldn’t
see me while I maintained the chant, but there was still a form to the
confirmation. Trotting right out in front of him, even knowing he wouldn’t see
a thing, seemed thoughtless. So I stepped out slowly, giving him time to notice
me and myself time to study the man I might have to kill.
Once I saw him, I knew I
didn’t want to.
Ash blond hair hung
disheveled around his gaunt, earnest face. A worn trench coat draped from his
bony shoulders, hanging limp over a rumpled shirt and loose slacks. His lined
skin made him look well into his fifties. A man on the humble side of ordinary.
Nothing about his doleful gray eyes screamed cold-blooded killer, and I wondered
how mine would look to him.
He said, “Are you an
idealist, Miss Preston? Or merely an opportunist?”
“Isn’t realist an option?”
Inquisitor Gianna Burris answered with her own question. I couldn’t see her
face, but everything about her stance embodied poise and confidence.
The Inquisitor had replaced
Reverend Martin Greaves as my liaison to the church’s High Council, and she did
not have the Reverend’s soft touch. But as much as I resented her, it was hard
not to be impressed by her nerve in that moment. The longer Lucas failed to
react to my presence, the more clear his inhuman nature became.
“Make a scene, Hawthorn.” A
crisp male voice spoke through the speaker in my ear. It was hard to focus on
his words while I softly murmured my own, and I didn’t recognize his voice. “Show
us he can’t see you.”
Lucas wasn’t facing me
directly, but I was in his line of sight. He would have reacted already if he
was going to, so I held up my hand, palm out, and pulled in three fingers and a
thumb to give the camera in my helmet an awkward one-fingered salute.
Quin snickered on the comm
but went quickly silent.
“Save it for the tag,” the
man said in my ear.
The gesture would have been
wasted on Lucas, but if I stopped chanting to point that out, it would cease to
be true. I let my arm fall and shook my wrist to work out the weird kink that
had tightened the back of my hand with that move.
“Can you get what I want?”
Lucas said.
Gianna’s head tipped down as
her gaze drifted over his weathered clothes. “Did you bring the down payment?”
I kept one eye on the messy
floor as I approached. One crunchy piece of trash or bit of broken glass would
give me away immediately, chanting or not.
Lucas leaned forward and
reached into his coat. I went for the khukuri, but before I could safely draw
it, he held out a thick envelope. He didn’t move toward her, and Gianna had to
step in to reach for it. I circled behind him as she did. If I had to do this,
I didn’t want to see his face.
I opened my spirit eye, and
white light seeped from his skin. It had been weeks since I saw an infernal’s
aura like that, but he seemed fainter than any of them. Dimmer than even Cobie
had been when I killed her, and I suspected she was newly changed at the time.
A swell of sickness, fury,
and guilt rose at the thought of her, but I pushed it aside. Cobie hadn’t been
my friend. She only acted like it.
Gianna didn’t react when I
moved into her field of view. She just opened the envelope and made a show of
flipping through its contents. “Trusting. Aren’t you afraid I’ll take it and
run?” She couldn’t have outrun a snail in those heels, but I doubted she was
speaking literally.
“Not at all.”
I checked the area around us
as I half-listened. We were beneath a massive tower and several floors of
parking, yet through the walls, indistinct disruptions in the darkness traced
the shape of rooms and hallways. My eyes flicked down, catching the outline of
a narrow service tunnel under our feet.
“The rest comes when I have
proof,” Lucas said.
There was a man in the tunnel
below, leaning against a wall. His light was dull and red, human, like Gianna.
Through the stone, cement, soil, and steel that separated us, I couldn’t see
much more detail than a slight dimming of his light, outlining the sleek shadow
of his gun.
“Proof,” he repeated. “Not
just names.”
“You’ll have it.”
All of the Templars lurking
around us were paired up, and I wasn’t enough of an optimist to think the lone
man in the tunnel had nothing to do with us, so I searched past him. My spirit
eye couldn’t see far through solid matter, but if he had other friends, I
needed to know. I stepped forward.
“Not yet,” the man said in my
ear.
I paused. Even if I could
have spoken without betraying myself, I couldn’t explain my sudden interest in
the floor. No one knew what I could see except for me.
“This city needs to know the
truth about the vipers in its nest,” Lucas said.
I looked up. Vipers? I didn’t know what he was trying
to buy. I didn’t even know if he thought the Inquisitor was from the church. He
had called her by a fake name.
“Spare me the sermon,” she
said.
“Opportunist then.” He
sounded disappointed.
Motion below drew my eyes
back down, but I held my head up so the helmet cam wouldn’t show where I was
looking as I stepped closer.
“Don’t expect—” Lucas let out
a pained shout, then doubled over and clutched his ear.
I froze.
Gianna withdrew as he backed
away from her, toward me.
What the fuck? I
reached for the khukuri and clumsily freed the blade from its sheath.
“What the fuck?” Quin echoed
my thoughts.
Without warning, Lucas swung
at the air behind him. His face twisted in a snarl of pain as his fist swept
through empty space. Gianna threw up her hands as, in the tunnel below, the
waiting human shot upright and started to move.
I scrambled back. An infernal didn’t have to hit me directly. If
he grazed me with his full strength, it could shatter my ribs or crush my skull
right along with my fancy helmet. And the Inquisitor didn’t even have that
much.
I knew what he was, and I
needed to act. But I was stuck.
If Lucas Alexander wasn’t
human, then neither was I. And if he deserved to die for it, why didn’t I?
After weeks of brooding, I still didn’t have an answer, but that seemed a
terrible time to agonize over it.
Especially when the voice on
the comm filled my ears, pointed and assured.
THREE
Gwyn
I STILL DIDN’T WANT TO KILL Lucas Alexander, but it was starting to look like I had no choice.
“What the hell is wrong with
you?” Gianna held character admirably as she backed into the wall.
I sprinted around him, giving
a wide berth but putting myself between the Inquisitor and the infernal. I
didn’t want to kill him, but I wouldn’t let him hurt her either.
Lucas ripped something out of
his ear, and the pain drained from his face. The tinny, piercing shriek that
came from his hand cut off as he tightened his fist with a crunch. His eyes
shot to the side, toward an unlabeled door.
He couldn’t see me, but he
knew I was there. I got the sick feeling I knew how when the crushed remains of
an earpiece fell from his hand.
He bolted for the door.
“Lawson, move in,” said the
Templar on the comm.
I drew a stun gun from the
holster at my hip and took desperate aim as I chased him. If the Templars
flanked him, the day would get a lot bloodier than it needed to. I fired. The
visor shielded my eyes from the streak of blinding light. It seared past him as
he threw himself sideways into the door, deforming the metal as the latch
ripped through the frame.
Firing the stunner confirmed
my presence and gave away my position, but Lucas didn’t turn toward the bait.
He barreled into a room full of boxes and construction material, and I followed
right behind. In the solid walls, where my eyes saw zero doors, my spirit eye
spotted one.
He grabbed a metal tool case
off a shelf and pitched it over my head with so much force that it exploded
when it hit the wall behind me. Nails and tools showered the floor, but I was
already past them. Sometimes it helps to be small.
“Stop him,” came another
command.
At the same time Quin said,
“That’s a dead end.”
Lucas knocked the hidden door
open, and I chased him down into a tunnel.
“Shit,” Quin corrected
himself.
Recessed lights traced along
the ceiling, but no power flowed to them. The tunnel would have faded to pitch
if not for the dark vision sensor that lit the inside of my visor in shades of
green. The combination of night vision and my spirit eye made the world look
like a surreal, drug-addled mess, but the important details were still clear.
The infernal ahead of me. The concrete tunnels around us. The debris in my path
that I couldn’t afford to trip over.
“...losing,” said a crackly
voice in my ear. “...new map. Go right—” Not a message for me, so I tuned it
out.
Lucas was fast. Fast enough
that it was almost inevitable I’d lose him. My only advantage was that he
couldn’t see me while I maintained the chant, but I could see him as long as he
didn’t get too far ahead.
Then the tunnel took a turn
toward his human backup, sprinting our way, and I guessed he didn’t mean to run
far.
“—ley, go!” the fading voice
crackled on the comm.
More backup meant a bigger
mess if I didn’t reach him first.
The human’s ephemeral red
spirit staggered to a stop behind a closed door, lurking where it wouldn’t hit
him just as Lucas blew through. The door bounced hard and started to slam shut,
and I rebounded off it as I passed, redirecting my momentum toward the waiting
man.
He looked younger than Lucas.
Bare cheeked, maybe my age. A slim, transparent visor covered his eyes,
probably so he could see in the dark. His gun was up.
I moved under it.
He shouted, “Stop or—”
My khukuri ripped through his
side. His weapon fired so close that the streak of light would have blinded me
if not for the helmet’s visor.
He went down with a visceral
cry. His weapon hit the ground, and I kicked it back down the tunnel.
A stun gun.
I turned toward the infernal.
He’d stopped running and started swinging. Blind to my exact location, he
inferred a lot from how I hit his trap.
I twisted.
He missed and struck again.
There was desperation behind
his attack, but also a powerful hesitation.
I ducked under another blow
and brought the khukuri around, but hands grabbed my leg. Pulled my attack up
short. The young man’s grip was solid, despite his strength bleeding out. And
he only needed to slow me down for a second.
I looked up, still chanting.
Lucas looked down, right through me.
Shit.
He held up his hands as a
shield while he searched for me over my head and a bit to the right. “My
quarrel isn’t with you, ‘angel.’” His calm expression and wary pose seemed
sincere. Far more so than the way he pronounced the word “angel.”
Sorry if my skepticism seems like malice.
I focused the energy I didn’t
need for the chant on my leg, then kicked. The human shouted as his grip broke,
and the infernal’s expression collapsed back into hard lines and grim focus.
Momentum carried me out of
the way as he struck where I’d been. Rubble and rocks and the curve of a
spray-painted letter exploded from the impact where his fist hit the wall. His
blood streaked the broken cement as he withdrew. He wasn’t taking chances anymore
either.
“Run.” The human tried to
climb to his knees, arm clutched against his bloody side. “Run. I’ll catch
you.”
I doubted it. The Templars
would find him first.
But Lucas Alexander ran.
I trailed him down the tunnel
with my stun gun in one hand and the khukuri in the other. He was straight
ahead and in range, but I needed to be close to take the shot. Close enough to
strike immediately if it hit. Even faster if it missed.
He slammed another door
behind himself and stopped on the other side. I stopped too. Through the aged
steel and chipped paint, his glowing white form waited for me to follow.
I inched toward the wall. If
he struck the door down, it might still hit me there, but he didn’t. I
shouldn’t have known he was waiting for me. I’d followed him through a half
dozen doors without hesitating, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he would stop
and think about that.
The secret had been burning
me up because learning it taught me something I wished I didn’t know about
myself. But I had never fed on anyone. I’d never drained the spirit out of
another living being, so I didn’t know what that side of the scale felt like.
Even nine weeks after learning I was an infernal, it still didn’t feel real.
But it was.
Lucas couldn’t see me because
of the chant. He wouldn’t see the truth of what I was even if he could. I
looked wrong to other infernals, nearly human. He wouldn’t know I wasn’t.
But I could see him through
the door the same way he should have seen me, and if he thought about it, maybe
he would guess.
The motion of his legs and
narrowing of his chest looked like he’d turned and taken a step back. Another
step. He stopped, and I followed the direction his head seemed to turn and saw
Templars through the earth. They were closing in from the side, and they were
ahead of him.
His white glow shifted wildly
as he sprinted away. If the flanking Templars got to him first, he’d either rip
the lives out of their bodies, or they’d risk incinerating us all to kill him.
It would be my failure if either happened, but I didn’t dare open the door
until he was too far ahead to turn back.
He didn’t slow when the
hinges squealed.
I tapped into the energy that
fed my chant and drew a little more. My stride lengthened, my feet pushed a
little harder, and I ran faster. Hunger gnawed at my stomach from using that
inhuman energy, but it was mild. It wasn’t dangerous yet, and I started gaining
ground instead of losing it.
Lucas tore through a doorway
and stopped.
Still chanting, I flattened
myself against the wall to avoid whatever he meant to throw at me.
“I meant what I said.” He
only flung words as he backed away. “Hope you’re listening, because I might not
want your blood on my hands. If you follow me here, you’ll die too fast to
regret it.”
I lurched forward, still
chanting. Still hidden from his eyes.
His head swiveled toward the
Templars. They were nearly upon us, racing down an intersecting tunnel. He
slammed the door and took off.
An electric blue nexus lit up
part of the door frame. A security system or lock on the far side that he must
have set up in advance. The whole meet with Gianna had been planned after all,
but not by the church.
I was still running when the
Templars burst into the tunnel ahead, and the display in my helmet reacted to
mute the brilliance as their flashlights drove back the darkness.
The man in front reached for
the door.
Lucas’s words filtered
through all the fears fighting for my attention as I stared at the electronic
light he’d triggered.
It wasn’t a lock.
I broke my chant and tried to
stop. “Wait!” My boots scraped the concrete floor.
Thunder smashed the tunnel,
and my back hit the wall.
The blunt impact of debris
beat my ribs, and the chant’s abrupt end burned its chill from my skin. Like
I’d been slammed into a vat of hot water.
Then I was sliding. Falling.
Voices shouted. Static
crackled. I barely heard either through the ringing in my ears.
I saw blurry cement and
clouds of dust. I sat up, and the room spun a few degrees before righting
itself. Acid burned my throat, and bile bit into the taste of copper in my
mouth. I’d lost control of my spirit eye, and so the Templars’ auras were gone.
The display inside my visor
buzzed. Static colors blazed from damage to the screen over my left eye. It
flashed once. Twice. After the third blinding flare, I found the release with
shaking fingers and pulled the helmet off.
I was blind. My hands were
empty, but I didn’t remember dropping the helmet.
I was out of the comm loop,
but I didn’t care. Even if a message came through, I probably couldn’t hear it.
“Lawson?” It was the only
name they’d said while my comm still worked. My slurred voice sounded like it
came from both five feet away and a cavern inside my skull. I levered myself
onto my knees.
Dim light filtered through
the dust and smoke. Debris fell away from me as I crawled toward the Templars,
shock giving way to sick fear of what I’d find. My muddled brain reminded me
that I could see through the haze if I used my spirit eye.
I didn’t want to look, but I
needed to know.
The ephemeral light appeared,
as if a curtain had been drawn back. My chest shook as my mouth filled with a
new rush of bitter fire. I swallowed.
Four living bodies sprawled
in the tunnel, but there was dead flesh with them, and it wasn’t all in one
piece. One Templar’s red light dimmed. Fading. Dying.
I found my khukuri lying on
the ground and picked it up as I caught sight of Lucas Alexander’s white light.
Debris cluttered the tunnel, but the way after him wasn’t blocked. Still, he’d
gained too much distance and was quickly fading from view.
Son of a bitch.
Now I wanted to kill him.
I tried to remember how many
Templars I’d seen. Was it six? Seven? I couldn’t tell one from the other in the
darkness. Their spirits blurred together so much that I couldn’t even count
them. How many died because I was too slow to catch him?
And too slow to warn them of
something I shouldn’t have been able to see.
I had failed, and so there
would be no explanations demanded about how I’d known, no unbelievable lies
told.
No immediate execution.
Shame filled me, warring with
my relief.
Footsteps beat the concrete
behind me. I turned too quickly, and the hallway quirked sideways then righted
itself as I swayed and nearly fell.
The dim red auras of Templars
approached along the path I’d taken. Their leader’s flashlight snapped toward
me.
“Where is he?” Her shout
barely penetrated the foamy ringing in my ears, but I recognized Hanley’s
voice.
I swallowed. “Gone.”
Her light flicked over my
head. Her steps faltered, and the figures behind her slowed too. I recognized
them from the stairwell. Both were armed now.
“Lawson! Sir, are you hurt?”
Hanley called.
A pistol rose past my right
side, clutched in a Templar’s bloody, armored fist. He was standing behind me,
where I couldn’t see him, and aiming down the tunnel at Hanley and her team.
The barrel quivered, and his finger curled across the trigger. I shoved his arm
with a wordless cry as the shot stabbed my ears.
Fingers dug into my scalp and
tangled with my hair. My scream drowned out Hanley’s shouting as dark purple
locks slid out of my braid and into my eyes. The pain spiked as he forced me to
face him and dragged me to my feet.
To my spirit eye, white
radiance surrounded the Templar, but it didn’t seep through his flesh as it
should. It hovered around him and bulged from his skin. Discordant light arched
over his head and flickered from his back like the wings of a giant bird.
He dropped the pistol and
seized my head between his hands, forcing me to face him. Glassy eyes gazed at
nothing through his broken helmet. Brother Lawson’s eyes. His pupils weren’t
lined up, much less directed at me. His jaw hung slack.
Impossible.
I aimed a desperate kick at
his groin. His armor would have absorbed some of the blow, but his vacant
expression didn’t change.
I raised the khukuri, pulled
on the strength I was supposed to hide, and brought the blade down on Lawson’s
forearm. Flesh sheared, and bone crunched. His hand released and fell away from
his arm, but his flat expression didn’t change. Blood didn’t spurt from the
wound as it would if his heart still beat. It splattered, warm, across my face.
Then dribbled and dripped, with no living heart to pump it.
He jerked me forward, off my
feet, then flung me to the ground. My knees struck cement, sending spikes of pain
up my thighs.
Revenants took days to rise,
not seconds. But both revenants and infernals had the strength to crush my head
like an egg. Which one he was wouldn’t matter in a moment.
His eyes cleared and focused
on me. I brought the khukuri up as white light shifted and shot toward me along
Lawson’s arm, like an infernal starting to feed.
Instead of the rush of weakness and agony that I expected, a dozen hammers came down on my skull. My body froze. The splitting pain tore a shriek from my throat as the khukuri slipped from my fingers. Darkness buried me, and I never heard my weapon hit the ground.
I was riding my mother’s motorcycle alone for the first time. It was three weeks before she died and the hospital took it, along with everything else, to cover the expense of not saving her. The panel across the handlebars lit up, and a call tone played in my ears.
My heart jumped. Mom couldn’t have found out I’d bypassed the fingerprint lock. Not that soon.
Pressure surrounded my head and vibrated through my ears.
Sitting at a bus stop, I picked mold off the bread of a dumpster sandwich. A girl in designer jeans and gaudy shoes sat beside me and asked if there was a safe place to crash nearby.
“Why the fuck would I know?” I snapped, bitter because I did.
She said to call her Trinity.
I tried to blink, but I had no eyelids.
“We can’t squat up here forever,” Jack said.
I pulled his arms around me and rested the back of my head on his chest. “But I want to.” The clouds took on hues of pink and gold as dawn approached. “If you do.”
His chin settled on my shoulder, and his cheek pressed against mine. “I’ll make it happen.”
It was a lie, but I smiled anyway. Frigid morning wind whispered across the rooftop, but I was warm, for the moment. As the sun crested the mountains that ringed the city of Ash, I closed my eyes against its light.
I tried to push back, but I had no hands.
I lay on my side, face pressed into carpet sticky with blood. I couldn’t move.
Chilly air engulfed my bare skin. Couldn’t shiver.
But despite the cold, everything burned. I couldn’t cry.
For hours I stared at Jack’s lifeless, bloodless face, and I couldn’t even blink.
If I could have moved enough to close my eyes, I would have tried to gouge them out instead.
My throat clenched tight, and my lungs burned.
I woke up in a hospital bed, alone and confused. I panicked and looked for the door.
My knees gave out when my feet hit the floor, and I tangled with the sheets as I tried to stop my fall.
A young man caught me. He came from nowhere, but I forgot to wonder how when I saw his black armor and the sword sheathed at his side.
A feeble scream escaped my lips, but he only helped me rise.
“You’re safe.” His voice soothed me to silence as he withdrew.
I sat on the bed, looked up, and was paralyzed by the pity in his blue eyes.
My lips parted, but words froze in my throat, and tears ran down my cheeks before I remembered why. Then fragments of memory stabbed vicious little claws into my head.
Heartbreak wrenched his face as I crumbled.
I vibrated with the visions. I was the vibrations.
I stood in front of the first infernal I had ever killed. My heart strained to escape as I murmured the chant and confirmed that it hid me from her eyes.
I drew the khukuri from its sheath and took comfort from its silence.
The chant was darkness, and it frosted my lips with ice.
I was small and getting
smaller. Contracting. Crushed.
The pressure shook around me. I tried to scream, but I had no lungs.
The gag filled my mouth with fiber, bitterness, and blood.
A handsome man with gray sprinkled through his hair grabbed my throat.
Emil Vicks said, “Sing for me, angel.” His hand covered my lips, and his fire burned with the light he stole from my veins.
The pressure released.
I pulled air into my burning
lungs.
Light hovered over Brother
Lawson, and his body slumped. His head lolled oddly where my khukuri jutted out
of his neck, severing the spine. He let go of my hair as Hanley released the
weapon’s hilt and shoved the corpse away.
I stared at the dead man.
Twice dead. “What?” My legs gave out, and I sat on my heels. My stomach tried
to escape through my mouth, but I swallowed it.
“Hawthorn?” Hanley sounded
like she was yards away when she touched my head. “Are you okay? Gwyn?” Blood
covered her sleeve.
“No.”
She reached for my shoulder.
“Are you bleeding?”
I had no idea. “What the
fuck?”
The other Templars closed in.
