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TWENTY-SIX

Omen

There were times when the frequent sunlight of the mortal world became wearying, and I missed the constant dim of the shadow realm. The cycle of days and nights did have its benefits, though. For example, if I’d had more than this constant dimness during my long wait for the Highest to offer their attention, I might have some idea how long that wait had been.

It felt like an eternity or so at this point. Apparently the most ancient of shadowkind had decided to give the DMV a run for their money. Or maybe it only seemed like days on end because I didn’t have much to think about besides what trouble my crew might be getting into in my absence.

I hoped that they’d at least had the sense to keep moving and scope out the situation in San Francisco so we could jump right into action when I returned. And also that their scoping out hadn’t involved too much action on its own. Maybe it was too much to wish for both rather than one or the other, especially with our fiery not-quite-mortal in the mix.

My mind veered in that direction now and then of its own accord. To her scarlet hair and the defiance in her bright eyes… to the heated taste of her on my tongue and the feel of her matching my heat flame for flame…

I had no physical presence here, but the memory managed to stir a flare of lust all the same.

I hadn’t meant to give in to that temptation—but possibly it was all right. The world hadn’t ended because we’d fucked. I’d enjoyed it, and so had she, and she’d still been the same mouthy but frustratingly appealing nuisance afterward as she’d been before. It hadn’t been a vow or a nuptial. Releasing all that pent-up desire had eased the tensions inside me in a way I could actually appreciate.

It might not even be such a bad thing if we did it again. In moderation.

That was, if I could sort out whether I was more unsettled or gratified by the realization that no matter how much I’d insisted that I’d seen her , I now couldn’t shake the sense of how much she saw me. More of me than I’d have wanted anyone in all the realms to see. She’d struck straight through all my best intentions with the tenderness in her voice and those knowing eyes…

I should have been furious. I had been furious. But at the same time, the memory of her proclamation that I couldn’t scare her sent an odd twinge of longing through me.

Of course, none of that would matter if the Highest decided to keep me on hold until the end of time.

I shifted my awareness, searching for the lackey that had instructed me to wait here. If I bit that being’s head off, would the Highest decide it was time to turn their attention my way? The lackey didn’t appear to have lingered, though, and neither had the fiercer beings who’d caught me by the gas station and insisted I return with them to the nearest rift at once.

I could have taken down even the four of them if they’d been sent by anyone else. Damn the Highest and their fucking deals.

The call finally came, wordless but insistent, with a constricting tug around my neck. I sprang forward, wanting to shed that sensation as quickly as possible. The less I was reminded of my ties to these bastards, the better.

The deep, dark hollow roiled with an uneasy energy I hadn’t felt there before. The Highest loomed as monumental as always, but the sharpness of their attention now that they had deigned to lower it to me prickled through to my soul.

“Hellhound,” one intoned. “There you are.” As if I hadn’t been waiting on their doorstep for the last decade or so.

“Here I am,” I agreed. “What do you want, oh ancient ones?”

The thicker thrum that echoed through the air suggested the edge that had crept into my tone hadn’t gone unnoticed. The Highest let it slide, though, which should have been all the warning I needed right there.

“We’ve heard reports from your travels,” another said, her voice reverberating through every particle of my being. “More than one shadowkind have claimed you are working with a human woman who can work shadowkind powers.”

Fucking hell, not that complaint again. I’d known as soon as Rex’s crew got a glimpse of Sorsha in action, word would start to get out. The Highest would just love the idea that I might be collaborating with a sorcerer. Those mortal miscreants were little better than the hunters and collectors, the way they used our kind.

It seemed simpler to circumvent the complicated full story and stick to a half-truth. I shook my head, as much as I had one in this space, in feigned exasperation. “You bought into that story? I’d sooner disembowel myself than ally with a sorcerer. No, all of my comrades are shadowkind. One of them made a joke to a few rather dim-witted beings about being human—the humor must have gone over their heads.”

They studied me with more of that prickling intensity. “You’ve had no associations with any humans or being at times presenting themselves as human?”

What was that second bit supposed to mean?

“Not at all,” I said. “Plenty of our own kind to call on as I need to.” Not that many of them had responded to that call, but the Highest didn’t give a rat’s ass how my mission was going, as they’d made very clear during my last visit.

The tug at my throat came again, along with a jab of pain. I didn’t give them the satisfaction of a wince. They could yank my chain all they wanted, but their hold over me couldn’t stop me from lying as seemed necessary. I had at least that much freedom left.

“The reports were somewhat disjointed,” one of the Highest allowed after a moment. “The less experienced shadowkind are not always as astute as would be ideal. No matter. We have another subject to discuss with you.”

Joy of all joys. “Let me have it.” Then I could get back to my crew and leave these giant bastards behind.

“Seeing as you are spending so much time mortal-side as it is, and given your familiarity with that world and your earlier interest, we have decided on the final favor you will carry out for us.”

My spirits leapt with a wash of exhilaration I couldn’t have contained if I’d wanted to.

They could call it a favor all they wanted, but what it really amounted to was slave labor. Ten tasks, anything they demanded, was what I’d agreed to carry out for them in exchange for not ending up a savaged corpse like Tempest. The most generous favor my former partner-in-crime had ever offered me was the lesson of just how badly things could go once the Highest’s wrath came down on you if you didn’t think quickly enough.

Ten tasks, and I’d jumped at the snap of their fingers nine times already—the last more than a century ago. They’d taken a good long while deciding how they could best use me this final time.

As soon as the terms of my deal with them were fulfilled, I was slipping this leash and running free, and they could forget it if they thought they’d ever get a reason to have me kowtowing to them again.

“I’m at your service,” I said. It might disrupt our plans to take on the Company in the moment, but that would be worth it to shake off my shackles. “What is it you need?”

“We would like you to find the being named Ruby and inform us of her location.”

Ah. Well, that was good news in that I’d have liked to find that being too, but less so in that I’d already given it a pretty good go and had little to no luck so far. No one seemed to even know Ruby had ever existed except the Highest themselves and the shadowkind they’d informed of the fact. Were they setting me up on an impossible task so they could keep me chained to their will forever?

I resisted the urge to produce my fangs and dipped my head in acknowledgement instead. “I’d be happy to do so. I’ll be able to accomplish that task faster if you could let me know her last known location and any other details you have about her appearance and behavior.”

The Highest made a grumbling sound between them as if they were offended by my request, but they obviously wanted this Ruby more than they cared about any impudence they thought I was expressing.

“She slipped through our fingers many years ago, shortly after we first became aware of her existence. We’ve had no further information since. That is your responsibility. As for the rest, you must be aware that she is highly dangerous, although she may not appear to be at first. Avoid direct contact at all costs. As soon as you have identified her, come straight to us.”

Oh ye of so little faith. I sighed. “That’s really not much to go on. Presumably if this shadowkind is so adept at hiding herself, she won’t be going by the name you’ve been asking after her by anymore. What type of being is she? What mortal appearance does she take? What are these horribly dangerous secret powers of hers?”

There was more grumbling as the Highest appeared to confer with one another. Had they really thought they could send me off on this ridiculous quest without giving me a single hint about who I was looking for?

Probably, yes.

Finally, someone else spoke up from their immense huddle. “We can tell you more, but if we discover that you have spoken of this matter to any other being, our deal will be forfeit and you will be at our mercy.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. “Yes, yes,” I said. “That’s fine. Just tell me.” It wasn’t as if I hadn’t kept plenty of other secrets—like the fact that the Highest had any sort of grip on me at all—from my companions.

“Very well. The one named Ruby may not appear to be a shadowkind at all. That is part of what makes her so treacherous. When a shadowkind abases themselves to a mortal level, it is in rare circumstances possible for them to bear a child with a mortal. As few beings would lower themselves in such a way to begin with, we are aware of only three such unions in all existence. The first two we were able to deal with promptly. With this third, we have been foiled so far.”

A nauseous chill started to unfurl in my gut. “And this Ruby… is the shadowkind who produced that child?”

A harsh sort of chuckle echoed through the space. “No. That one and her mortal partner met the fates they deserved. But some accomplice of theirs escaped with the child. That is Ruby—the name they gave her. As if she were a jewel and not a menace to all existence.”

I tried to find the words, but for a moment I could barely think, let alone speak. They couldn’t really mean—Sorsha had never given me the impression she thought she’d had another name. That was the sort of thing that would have come up while searching out her history. And from what I’d seen, she was more a danger to her own existence than to anyone else’s.

Had we gotten the wrong information somewhere in our search? Mixed wires that had crossed her history with this shadowkind-human hybrid? But she did have powers no full human should have been able to possess.

“I hope you’ll forgive my confusion,” I managed, gathering myself. “But wouldn’t a creature born of shadowkind nature mingled with humanity be weaker than a pure shadowkind, not stronger?”

“One would wish it was so, but that is not the case. Do not approach and especially do not provoke this being when you come across her. The unnatural bond in her natures creates a connection to both realms. She can inflict all the damage her powers allow on both without bringing any harm to herself from either side. If we could have snuffed out that alchemy when she was a mere infant… Now it will have had time to grow within her. All it will take is a little fuel, and she will set our realm and theirs alight in the most searing flames.”

The Highest had been wrong about a lot of things in their time. Their understanding of the mortal realm was utterly second-hand, and they’d admitted themselves that the only other two hybrid beings they were aware of, they’d slaughtered in infancy. But their words brought back the momentary terror I’d seen in Sorsha’s expression now and then when we’d fought. Her warnings that she might be able to hurt me more than I could imagine.

She’d sensed something in herself, something more than I’d been able to see. Maybe I shouldn’t have dismissed her fears so quickly.

But still—how could I wrap my head around the idea that the sassy thief who liked nothing more than to tease the beast out of me and sing songs to her own lyrics was some kind of destructive force on a global scale?

I couldn’t, not yet. Maybe when I saw her again, knowing what the Highest had told me?—

And then what? They’d called in their last favor. I would never be free until I fulfilled it. They would never believe I’d fulfilled it until they were sure “Ruby” was dead. Even speaking of what I’d learned today might mean I met the same fate as Tempest after all this time despite everything I’d sacrificed.

I reined in that inner turmoil. I couldn’t make the decision now in front of these ancient goliaths—that much I was sure of.

“I understand,” I said, even though there was a hell of a lot I still didn’t, and then another thought struck me, slicing straight through the core of me. I gathered myself and forced out one more question. “If this hybrid mortal-shadowkind has had time to mature… might she not have created children of her own?”

Could the fiery union I’d remembered fondly be an even bigger disaster waiting to happen?

“We are unsure if this monstrosity would even be fertile. If she has mated with another human, perhaps it is possible, but their offspring would not have the same balance of powers that gives her such potency. You could destroy those without threat to yourself.”

“And if she’s mated with another shadowkind?”

The Highest who’d spoken let out a sound like a huff. “That would require the same ceremony of abasement as that of her mother. We expect that to be exceedingly unlikely—and even if so, the balance would again be skewed. Ruby herself should be your primary concern.”

And so she was. I had to assume this ceremony was more than simply allowing oneself to mash genitals with a mortal, or there’d be a hell of a lot more hybrids running around just of my stock, not to mention the many incubi and succubi of all existence. I was safe from hellhound pups for the time being, apparently. That hardly solved my larger problem.

I made a gesture of deference. “Any trace I discover of her, I’ll pass on to you as soon as I hear of it.”

“We will be waiting,” another of the Highest said in a tone that sounded more like a threat than a promise, and I felt their dismissal with a lightening of the constriction around my neck.

As I made my way through the shadows, my thoughts whirled, but I didn’t try to pin down any one thread. An insistent pull drew me onward—not to one of the rifts that would have spilled me out into the San Francisco area, but one that would return me to Austin.

I tore through the boundary between shadow and mortal realms with the quivering electricity the transition always provoked. Roaming from shadow to shadow, I made my way to the office that held the city’s records. The one where Sorsha had tried and failed to find evidence of her birth.

If I couldn’t find anything either, it wouldn’t mean much. Her parents might never have registered her, given their situation. But if I did…

The office was closed for the night. I slipped beneath the door and found a computer that booted up without any special commands.

We’d celebrated her birthday only a little more than a week ago. I knew what date it was supposed to be.

The names rippled by, none of them familiar. Then a tickle of sensation passed over my eyes. I paused, studying the screen.

A fae glamour was embedded in the data, just as it’d been in Sorsha’s memories.

With my stomach clenching, I willed a bolt of my power at the illusion. The magic crackled and fell away. And there, glowing before my eyes, were the damning words.

Twenty-eight years ago on September 4 th , Philip Woodsen had registered the birth of his daughter, Ruby.