Page 178 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

Nine

Riva

S ully slumps into the chair across from me at the dining table, having just returned for lunch after a session with Matteo. He lets out a rough sigh. “I don’t know why he keeps making us go through that crap when it isn’t doing anything.”

Zian lifts his head from the roast beef sandwich he was polishing off a couple of seats down, his eyebrows lifting. “The procedures haven’t affected your powers at all?”

The younger boy shakes his head, his broad face gloomy. “Matt’s always asking me to make the illusions clearer and hold them longer. Or sometimes to draw them bigger. But it never works.”

He pauses, and the lines of his frown pull deeper. “Sometimes I think he’s hoping I’ll make something that’s not even an illusion—that I’ll conjure something that turns out to be real. That’s crazy, right?”

The six of us Firsts exchange a glance around the table. None of us can conjure objects out of thin air, but given the unearthly things we can do, it doesn’t seem impossible.

But from what we know, the younger shadowbloods were created from a weaker formula than our own genetic engineering, however exactly that worked.

Ursula Engel, one of the founding guardians and the scientist who worked out how to mingle human and shadowkind essence to create us, was scared when she saw how we Firsts were developing. She wanted us dead from when we were little kids.

The rest of the Guardianship refused, shut her out, and demanded her work so they could create more shadowbloods. The notes we found on her laptop indicated that she modified the instructions she sent them.

I suspect she was hoping her refined methods wouldn’t work at all. That wasn’t the case, but all of the younger shadowbloods we’ve met have powers much weaker than ours.

Balthazar must have been hoping that his staff’s “procedures” would wake up new potential in them. Between the injections Matteo has given me and the mental and physical exercises he’s insisted I perform, my own abilities have been steadily progressing.

Yesterday, I killed a rat in a second with a shriek that emitted almost no sound at all. Matteo was testing with a piece of tissue paper by my mouth that fluttered only a fraction with the hint of expelled breath.

I don’t know what makes me queasier: the thought of how many innocent animals I’ve slaughtered over the past week or the moment when I almost missed Clancy.

The man who presided over the island facility had sick ideas and was driven by greed, but he was also the only guardian who ever tried to teach me how my brutal power could be used to do things other than maim and kill.

I’d much rather be practicing how to hold a creature in place without doing any actual harm than how to snuff out its life as quickly as possible.

Of course, if anyone bothered to give us an actual choice like a human being should have, I wouldn’t be practicing at all. I’d be shoving down my hunger as far into the depths of my being as I could.

If we didn’t have guardians and whoever else hunting us, I’d never need to bring it out again.

Andreas, with typical easygoing diplomacy, side-steps Sully’s question of craziness altogether. “Maybe it’s working on us faster because our abilities have already had more time to expand before now. I don’t know how my talent with memories could develop much farther, but…”

He grips the arm of his wooden chair. With a flex of his fingers, both his hand and the chair disappear, leaving him sitting on what appears to be thin air.

I stare, my breath catching in my throat. I’ve seen Andreas turn completely invisible himself, but never only partly. And never making an object larger than he could fit in his pocket vanish as well.

He releases the chair, which blinks back into view instantaneously, and shrugs at us. “I have no idea if that’s the direction Balthazar would have wanted my powers to go, but that’s what I’ve gotten.”

Booker frowns. “I’m not seeing auras brighter than I did before—or seeing anything new in them. Nadia’s said it hasn’t made any difference for her glowing either.”

His stance tenses, and I suspect he’s thinking of his girlfriend being led away by Matteo just minutes ago, after he returned Sully to us.

Booker glances at Ajax, who makes a face. “I still can’t control when I pick up thoughts or go any deeper than I used to. As much as I wish I could.”

The younger teen hesitates after that sentence, not voicing what I think he’d have added. If he could read minds more purposefully and clearly, he might be able to find us information that would get us out of Balthazar’s grasp.

We don’t mind talking about the things our captor definitely knows or could easily guess. Trying to keep totally closed-lipped about our real thoughts would drive us all insane.

But we all know it wouldn’t be wise to openly discuss total rebellion.

Ajax turns to Zian, his dark eyes full of thoughtful curiosity. “You’ve seen a difference?”

Zian tips his head with an obvious reluctance that makes me want to give his arm a comforting squeeze. I wish he could welcome that contact instead of being afraid it’d set off his past trauma.

“I’ve been getting… bigger, when I transform,” he says. “And some of the wolfish features more prominent. Matteo has been trying to see if anything will change with my X-ray vision too but not much there yet.”

His shoulders hunch as he takes a careful bite of his sandwich, and my stomach tightens.

Zian already hated the way he transforms and the monstrous rage that can provoke a shift. Now Balthazar’s people are amplifying that part of him even more.

How many ways will we be tormented before we can find real freedom?

I force myself to tear into my own sandwich, but the layers of fresh bread and sliced meat taste like sawdust. Tension winds through my muscles, begging for action.

But what action could I take? The deadly manacles that hold all of us captive clink against the table with the movements of our arms.

There’s been no sign that anyone’s reacted to the note I tucked into that man’s pocket at the gala a week ago. Did he not notice my plea for help?

Or maybe he thought it was a prank. Maybe he had no idea who Mr. Balthazar would even be.

My jaw clenches with the impression that the painted walls are closing in on us.

Farther down the table, Griffin’s head jerks up. His expression goes distant as if he’s focusing on something beyond this room.

We’re all on edge enough to pick up on his shift in mood. Jacob is already pushing back his chair. “What? What’s happening?”

Griffin’s lips purse in concentration before his attention comes back to us. He pauses as if he’s not sure how to answer.

Then he simply stands up. “Come with me. There’s something I want to check.”

Something he doesn’t want to overtly tip off to anyone listening in. I scramble to my feet, my pulse kicking up a notch.

We all hustle after Griffin, abandoning our lunch. He doesn’t give any indication about what he’s noticed as he strides down the hall and pushes open the door at the back of the villa.

Nothing about the grounds outside or the sprawling mountain landscape beyond them looks different from usual. Griffin doesn’t linger on them anyway, heading a little farther across the back patio toward a garden area with grassy paths winding between low hedges.

He pauses there, his head cocked. The rest of us gather behind him in silence.

After a minute, Griffin glances over his shoulder. “Jake, I think I can start this, but I might need you to… hold things in place.”

He’s still speaking vaguely for discretion. Jacob looks puzzled but nods without hesitation. “I’m ready.”

Griffin closes his eyes.

For the space of several more breaths, we waver in bewildered anticipation. Then a form materializes between two of the nearby hedges: the portly, chestnut-haired shadowkind man we saw by the outer wall several days ago.

He’s staring at us, his expression twitching between a smile and flickers of echoed bewilderment. Understanding hits me.

Griffin must have sensed the man was here at the villa—I told him what we’d seen. I bet shadowkind emotions have a distinctive flavor compared to any other visitors.

I also told him how the man ran away when we tried to talk to him. He’s used his emotional compulsion to make the guy feel like he wanted to appear to us.

But the supernatural being is clearly fighting Griffin’s sway. Jacob’s eyes narrow, and the man’s limbs lock in place.

Keeping his attention trained on the man, Jake motions to me. “I don’t think me physically holding him will be enough if he decides to leave. You froze the shadowkind with your scream once.”

I did. A chill washes over me, remembering that moment—the moment I slaughtered one of Rollick’s associates who’d turned on us and then almost killed Billy, the sweet faun who’d only been trying to help.

But Jacob is right. We’ve never been able to stop shadowkind from vanishing into the shadows by physical force in the past.

My scream is the only thing that’s ever totally constricted them. I can use it if I have to.

Griffin’s persuasion seems to be keeping enough of the man’s good will for now. I blurt out the first questions that pop into my head before I can’t use my voice to speak anymore. “What are you doing here? Do you work for Balthazar?”

“Work?” The man’s lip curls with a hint of a sneer. “Oh, he makes me work.”

Griffin blinks, and something in the man’s demeanor changes, his chin lifting at a more defiant angle. I tense to let out a scream, but the shadowkind doesn’t make any other move.

It isn’t us Griffin’s encouraged his defiance against.

“What do you do for him?” Andreas asks.

A twitch ripples through the man’s rounded frame. “Not anything it’d be good for me to talk to you about.”

Zian steps forward. “Do you know a demon named Rollick? Or a succubus who works with him—Pearl?”

The blankness of the man’s expression answers the question before he opens his mouth. I break in before he needs to. “If you know anyone who’d help us—we’re trapped here—Balthazar has worked with people who want to destroy beings like you. We’d help?—”

The shadowkind man cuts me off with a derisive snort. “ You’re trapped?”

Those two words say enough. I’m abruptly certain that the being in front of us, whatever his supernatural powers are, feels just as imprisoned by his association with Balthazar as we do.

How the hell did our captor manage that?

“Please,” Ajax says quietly, but I’ve already caught the shift in the man’s posture. He’s shaking Griffin’s emotional hold.

And I’m not sure it’d really be in our best interests to force him to stay any longer.

My lips part anyway, but before I can decide whether to make one more plea or to shriek his compliance, a horrible crackling, tearing sound bursts through the air from behind me.

Sully cries out with a choked sound, and Booker yelps. I spin around to see Sully flailing, his hands dangling from severed wrists, blood and dark essence pouring from his gouged forearms where his bracelets have ripped them open.

Like they did to Lindsay. Oh, fuck, no.

I leap to him like I did with her, even though I couldn’t do anything before. Horrified adrenaline rushes through me, giving my awareness the heightened, disorienting feel of a nightmare.

Blood streams over the grass, painting the blades crimson. The meaty metallic smell saturating the air turns my stomach.

At the same time, the shadowy smoke billows upward, draining him in a very different way.

I clamp both hands around one of Sully’s arms, willing myself to find a way to hold his flesh together, to stem the tide. But like with Lindsay, the gouge is too wide, too deep.

Zian is struggling to help Sully at his other side, but I already know even his thick hands can’t seal these wounds. Sully sways on his feet, his face blanched, his eyes wide.

“I—I—” he mumbles, and his voice breaks with a desperate sob.

The other shadowbloods have closed in around him, the shadowkind man forgotten. “Put him down!” Jacob yells. “Maybe—maybe that’ll slow the bleeding.”

“Tear his shirt,” Andreas says in a quieter but equally fraught voice. “If there’s any way to bandage them…”

Zian tears at the fabric. Jacob kneels by us, his face hardening with concentration.

The flesh beneath my hands clamps together, but blood and smoke still seep from along Sully’s wrist beneath the manacle. Jacob narrows his eyes, but his strained exhalation shows how much effort it’s taking to work his talent that precisely.

His voice comes out with a rasp. “I can’t hold both at the same time—can’t concentrate like that…”

I glance around frantically through the haze of essence, and my gaze snags on a familiar figure watching us from the house. I hadn’t noticed Toni coming out.

“Please!” I shout at her. “Don’t let Balthazar do this. Sully didn’t do anything wrong. He was just—he was just here .”

“You were told not to approach that man,” Toni says in a rigid voice. “I hope you won’t need another warning.”

I stare at her. “He’s just a kid . You can’t really think this is okay.”

Apparently she does. She simply turns away without another word.

And something snaps inside me.

Fury sears through me, sharp and prickling, rattling my lungs. Stoking a fresh scream into the base of my throat.

The shadowkind man wouldn’t help us. None of the human beings here will either.

They’ve all turned their backs on us. They don’t give a shit what Balthazar does to us.

There isn’t a single person out there we can turn to except ourselves.

My throat resonates with the rising anger. I think I’d have shrieked it all out at Toni, shattered her from feet to head in the most painful way possible, if Sully hadn’t lurched toward me right then.

We’ve lowered him partly to the ground, but he’s managed to roll. My gaze jerks back to him as he squirms next to me.

“Help,” he mumbles. “Help. Help.”

I can see it’s already too late. Blood drenches his clothes and the grass beneath him. His voice is faltering with every iteration of his plea.

And it’s all Balthazar’s fault. Him and every person who’s let him continue his reign.

The rage blares on inside me, burning away all my hopelessness and fear.

I won’t be one of those people. I’ve destroyed everyone who tried to cage and torture us before.

I will not rest until I’ve shredded every organ in that psychopath’s body and ended this madness once and for all.