Page 217 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

Three

Griffin

R ollick lays out the world map on the pale floorboards of one of his mansion’s common rooms. The paper surface is big, a good six feet across and four high, so he’s pushed the furniture to the sides of the room to make space.

But even so, the imagery printed across the surface only offers a little detail, working on that scale.

The demon tsks his tongue. “You’re lucky I could dig up actual physical maps this quickly. Everyone’s all about the digital versions these days.”

Next to me, Riva rubs her arms and then forces her hands to her sides. Tense anticipation wavers off her into my awareness.

“So I start with the whole world and then narrow it down once we see what I come up with?” she says.

I nod. “After you get down to a smaller area like a city, we can switch to screens for that. But I always found it much easier to get a clear impression when I had a larger concrete map for the initial seeking.”

The other guys and a handful of shadowkind have been watching from a loose ring around us.

Jacob steps forward to tap my arm. “Are you sure you can’t do this?

I mean, since you have the experience with how to work the power effectively.

The procedures Balthazar had that asshole Matteo put us through expanded all of our talents. ”

I shoot my brother a tight smile. “Not all of ours. At least, not in any way we figured out. Matteo pushed me to locate strangers using names and photographs—even inanimate objects—but none of that ever worked.”

Riva glances at me in surprise. “Wait—the procedures didn’t affect your powers even a little?”

I can understand why she’d be startled. Jacob’s right that the rest of them saw major boosts to their abilities. It was only the younger shadowbloods, whose talents were much smaller to begin with, who didn’t show any effects.

Well, them and me.

I give a casual shrug that I hope conveys that I’m not bothered by it. “I wondered if the guardians’ conditioning and the way that affected my own emotions might have interfered with any progress I’d have made.”

Part of me thinks that’s a good thing. I’m not sure I’d want to know what horrifying new dimensions I could have discovered to my powers if Balthazar had gotten his way. My friends haven’t exactly been thrilled with every new development they’ve experienced.

But on the other hand, as I wait for Riva to borrow this one power of mine, a prickle of frustration runs through my chest. Followed by a different sort of jab as my conditioning clicks in, sending pain after the emotion.

I breathe slowly and deeply, not letting the discomfort show. I can’t tell whether the lingering effects of the guardians’ manipulations are fading or I’m simply getting better at enduring them, but I suppose it doesn’t make a lot of difference either way.

I wish I could take this task on instead of heaping one more responsibility on Riva’s shoulders. I wish I’d gotten a clearer sense of Balthazar during the weeks we spent confined to his villa.

All I have is a vague, jumbled impression of the tumultuous feelings I picked up on from a distance. I can’t even say for sure that every one of those impressions was definitely from him and not a nearby employee.

The best I can do is guide Riva. “You’ll want to focus on your memories of him, bringing them as vividly as you can to the front of your mind.

And then push the image toward the map, like your memories are a magnet and you’re searching for a surface they’ll attach to.

If it works, your finger will be drawn right to the spot where he currently is. ”

Riva nods and squares her shoulders. We don’t need to touch to exchange powers, but she rests her fingers on my wrist for a moment as she tugs the ability out of me with a light jitter of my nerves.

She closes her eyes, her face tensing with concentration. As much as I hate that I’m leaving her to do the real work here, I can’t help admiring the determination she brings to this task like every other, etched across her beautiful features.

This is my woman. The woman I’d follow to the farthest, deadliest corners of the earth, as long as she wants me with her.

I’m never letting myself lose sight of what really matters again.

Quivers of skepticism niggle me from the watching shadowkind, most of whom have never seen us trade powers before. If Riva has any sense that part of her audience isn’t sure what to make of her, she doesn’t let it distract her. She steps toward the edge of the map and holds out her hand.

Her fingers hover in the air for several seconds. Then they twitch to the right.

As she drops to her knees to follow the pull, a surge of exhilaration wafts out of her. She’s excited that she’s pulling this off.

A softer smile curls my lips. Even if I’d rather be working my own power than passing it on to her, I do love seeing her take charge. Watching her put all the strength she sometimes doubts to good use.

She’s been through more than any of us, had to grapple with knowledge we can barely imagine, but she’s still just as committed as she’s always been.

Her hand drops, and her eyes pop open. She peers down at the map.

“He’s in… Tunisia? Around the middle of the country.”

Toni, who’s stood back near the doorway, stirs with a frown. “As far as I know, Mr. Balthazar doesn’t own property in that country. But it could be a newer acquisition he didn’t tell me about.”

Rollick hums to himself and shuffles through the paper maps he set on a side table.

“It’s not too far a jump from Italy, where he was last holed up.

I don’t think I have anything specifically of Tunisia here…

Ah, this’ll give us a closer view of the western Mediterranean.

We can at least narrow down the governorate, maybe even a specific city. ”

One of the shadowkind, the squat man with metallic scales on his forehead who Rollick has called “Steel,” lets out a brief scoffing sound. “And then we’ve got to hunt down maps of the entire terrain of that country?”

“Once it’s narrowed down that much, I think a digital map should work all right,” I say.

A slim shadowkind woman with bark-like patches on her forearms shifts her weight restlessly. “How sure are we that this process is accurate? Even his lackey doesn’t think so.”

Riva lifts her head before I need to speak. “He’s there. I can feel him.” She grimaces. “It’s not a good feeling. I wouldn’t be imagining it out of nothing.”

The traces of doubt I’m picking up on don’t vanish, but in the face of Riva’s certainty, the shadowkind don’t argue.

Rollick folds up the world map and spreads out his Mediterranean one. As Riva steps to its edge, I let my gaze drift from her over the spectators.

A few of the shadowkind are totally on board with our presence.

Pearl watches Riva work with genuine eagerness, and her friend Billy stands nearby, wide-eyed with curiosity.

Sorsha the phoenix looks more concerned about keeping an eye on her fellow shadowkind than worrying about what us shadowbloods are doing.

I suspect Rollick has told her about how his people treated my friends in the past, just as my friends have told me. I wasn’t there when a bunch of his allies abandoned them and later tried to kill them, but I can taste hints of animosity among the others gathered in the room with us.

There’s no outright aggression in their moods—or what I can read of their stances. They’re more uncertain than hostile. But most of them still appear to see us as a potential threat, something to monitor.

They don’t trust us. They just trust their boss enough to tolerate his involvement in our lives.

And maybe it’s also that they realize they’re better off bringing the rest of the shadowbloods over to their side than letting Balthazar run wild with his new creations.

I could nudge them toward feeling happier about our presence.

Send waves of calm or friendliness through their minds.

But I’ve only worked my powers on a shadowkind being once before, and then I didn’t have time to be subtle about it.

I don’t know what my limitations might be, how big a push would be necessary and when it’d be going too far.

Or how easily they might notice my interference. They definitely won’t trust us if they realize one of us has attempted to manipulate their emotions.

I suppress a grimace of my own. That’s really all I’m good for in this war we’ve found ourselves in: intruding on people’s minds, bending their perceptions of their desires and fears.

I’ve helped in other ways. I’ve used my talent to remind Riva of her convictions, to reassure Jacob of the love they share.

But when the people I care about are emotionally healthy, I can’t contribute anything other than messing up that carefully won balance. Almost every time I have used my powers on them, it was to serve people I should have realized were our enemies.

The pang of guilt comes with another jolt of conditioned pain. I gird myself as Riva points to a specific spot on the map. “Right here. In or near Kairouan.”

Rollick is already bringing up a city map on the tablet he had ready. He adjusts it so it includes some of the surrounding area and then glances at me. “We can simply keep zooming in as we go, I assume?”

I shake off my pensive thoughts. “Yes. If you follow her directions quickly enough, she won’t even need to refocus, just kind of chase after her sense of him deeper into the map.”

Riva’s eyes have brightened with renewed confidence after her first two successes. She taps on the northern part of the city, and then in the middle of the zoomed-in area Rollick offers.

There, she hesitates, a frown crossing her face. “It feels like… he’s moving. Like when I try to narrow in on his location, it shifts before I can totally lock on.”

Dominic comes up beside her to study the map. “Every inch on that screen is still about a mile. Even a car wouldn’t be moving that fast.”

I have to speak up, even though the reason I know this makes me even more ashamed. “An aircraft would. A plane… or a helicopter.”

I once tracked my friends as they approached one of the facilities by helicopter, hoping to sneak up on the guardians by coming from multiple directions. It only took a few minutes for me to see how the two flight paths were converging.

Riva mutters a curse. “He’s in the middle of going someplace else, then. We don’t even know for sure if he started that flight in Tunisia.”

“Which direction is he headed in now?” Rollick asks.

She refocuses on the map and moves her finger in a slow, halting line. “Northeast, it seems like.”

Toni approaches to consider the larger map, her expression still tight. “He does have holdings in Egypt and in South Africa. Egypt would have been closer, but…” She shrugs to indicate she has no definite information on where Balthazar would have gone when he fled.

“All right.” Rollick turns off the tablet and tucks it under his arm.

“I can send a few of my companions to chat with the local shadowkind near the portals in Tunisia and see if any of them have noticed unusual activity. And we’ll check on your would-be world conqueror’s location again in a few hours. ”

Zian rolls his shoulders with an impatient air. “What should we do until then?”

Riva’s head comes back up with a flash of hope across her face.

“I knew a few of the younger shadowbloods pretty well. Maybe I can track their locations. We’ll want to know where they are so we can get them out—and that’ll give us some idea which of Balthazar’s properties he’s using to hold people like us. ”

“That seems worth a shot.” Rollick goes to retrieve the large world map so they can start over from scratch. “You seem confident enough now—and I hope my colleagues have all indulged their curiosity in this process.”

The demon shoots a pointed look at the gathered shadowkind, a few of whom duck their heads and waver back into the shadows.

Then he gestures to Toni. “You should stay, since you’re familiar with your former employer’s haunts.

Maybe the rest of our shadowbloods can make themselves useful too.

Sorsha, why don’t you take them to the atrium and start sorting out potential strategies once we’ve figured out where to hit this megalomaniac. ”

The red-haired woman chuckles and motions for everyone else to follow her. I pause to give Riva’s arm a quick squeeze. “You’ve got this, Moonbeam.”

The smile she aims at me in return is almost enough to make up for the fact that there isn’t anything else I can offer her. I drift after the other guys reluctantly.

The atrium is a square of garden inside the mansion’s sprawling walls, open to the outside with no roof overhead. Sweet fragrances drift off the flowering bushes along one wall.

More shadowkind pop into being as Sorsha turns to face us with a decisive clap of her hands. “All right. First things first—what can each of you contribute in a fight?”

My smile turns tight again, but I only have one answer to give. “I can confuse their emotions. Send them into a panic or lull them complacent. Whatever works best for the plan.”

Steel turns his cool gaze on me. “You could do that to shadowkind too, huh, shadowblood boy?”

I give him the most reassuring look I’m capable of. “I wouldn’t, though. Not when we’re helping each other.”

I pretend I don’t notice the flicker of uneasiness that stirs in him at my words. And then Toni bursts into the atrium with a ragged breath.

“It’s started,” she says. “Mr. Balthazar’s shadowblood army—they’ve launched an attack.”