Page 139 of Ballad of Nightmares

“Nice of you to join us,” Millie said, her gaze skating over each person settled at the chamber table.

“What’s this about?” Rogers asked.

Sam leaned back in his chair, his scarlet gaze seeping through the darkness as he drawled, “It’s about which of you is a spy for Prei,” his voice a low vibration in the air.

Deep in the middle of uptown, miles and miles away from Castle Corvus, thunder rumbled like a drum over SkyCor.

A few council members murmured between one another, some looking out the windowed walls as the wind seemed to whip so violently, papers and leaves swirled in the outside air.

“No one here is a spy for him,” Fairland said, her eyes widening as another rumble of thunder sounded.

The lights in the tower flickered.

Others began to speak up as the clouds grew darker and darker, but there was one… just one… who remained silent.

“Sera,” he called her name.

Sera looked directly into the camera as the rest of the room settled down. Thunder cracked again, this time so violent that the glass windows shook, and people on every floor of the building went to look outside.

“Sera, Sera…” Sam stood from his chair, slowly stepping around the desk, his shadows covering him, and then he sat beside Millie, his shadowed arms crossing over his chest. Wisps of black umbra curled in the air behind him, silhouetting the shape of his wings. He studied Sera’s face a moment, watching her gaze dart to two people with whom he knew Sera trusted and was good friends with.

“Who is the spy?” he asked her.

Sera hesitated, swallowing hard, her eyes casting down to the table and then back to the camera. Shadows crawled up the sides of the tower as vines begging for the sun. They infiltrated every floor, seeping and spilling over the carpets and tile…

A couple of the Council members picked their feet up into their chairs as the umbra spread over the long conference room. And Sera began to visibly tremble when they tickled up her ankles to her thighs, around her waist, and to her wrists. Every inch up her body sent her lips quivering down, her jaw shaking with fear. A tear slipped down her cheek—

“Rogers,” she spat, almost involuntarily. She shot to her feet, backing up against the wall. “Rogers—it was Rogers—“

Rogers bolted upright, cursing at Sera. “You little—“

Shadows sharpened into glass and cut across Rogers’s throat. His blood spilled down his front, and Sam took that life without raising a finger. Other people screamed, jumping out of their chairs.

“Who else?” Sam interjected over the chaos.

“Evans,” Sera stammered. “Evans and Rogers—no one—“

Screams cut through, overloading the speaker to the point sound began to cut out. Sam pushed off the desk, and Millie whipped around the back of it to thumb away on the keyboard, making sure their connection wasn’t interrupted.

Sam was solely focused on the traitors in his midst. He stepped directly up to the screen and camera, only his scarlet eyes and silhouette pouring through the feed, and he tilted his head. Shadows sliced across Evans’s ankles as he darted to the door. They pulled him down to the floor, surrounding him with their fog.

The only thing left of his body when the black receded was his blood on the carpet.

The room seemed to be motionless. Members of the council paused to watch their friend disappear, slowly moving off the table or out of the chairs, and every one of them slowly turned back to the camera and television.

Every darkened shadow deliberately evacuated from Sam’s office except for the silhouette of his wings. And for the first time since the war, Death revealed his face.

Gasps sounded from the remaining Council members as he settled his hips back onto the desk, arms lazily hugging his chest. The shadows in the conference room continued to hover around the floor, a warning for any that might speak out, but none did. Apparently too stunned at the revelation that he’d been living among them all this time.

“Now,” Sam sighed, looking at each of them directly for the first time. “The rest of you will be waiting on a phone call tomorrow from Milliscent with instructions. If I find out more of you are slipping information to any of these other realms, I’ll pay you a personal visit,” he said. “We’ll get to know each otherverywell…” The tip of a shadow tickled a few of the women’s cheeks with the words, making them tremble.

“Are we clear?” he asked.

Each person on the screen nodded, unable to manage anything else, and Sam finally released them.

The screen went black.

Millie stood from the desk and circled in front of him, a wide smile on her lips. “Your Majesty,” she said with a flutter of her eyes. “I wish your girl had been here to see that. She’d be as bothered as I am right now.”