Page 218 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

Four

Riva

A s our helicopter thrums through the air, I flick at the screen of the tablet Rollick lent us, careening from scene to scene of destruction. With each, my stomach knots tighter.

Some of it is amateur footage, shaky cell phone camera recordings punctuated by the startled yelps and breathless exclamations of the locals who witnessed the initial onslaught. The official news crews arrived on the scene later, after Balthazar’s new shadowbloods had already fled the scene.

I only catch glimpses of the figures in the amateur footage. No one who survived to post their videos online got close enough to the carnage to capture identifying details.

But the impact is clear enough.

In one recording, a distant form slams his fist into the side of a four-story building—and it crumples to the ground in a hail of rubble. In another, screams ring out as streaks of sizzling blue energy whip through the air to cut down the panicked locals who were too close.

It wasn’t just Moscow, the first place one of Rollick’s shadowkind allies saw a news report on and alerted us about. Balthazar has already built up enough of an army that he was able to send at least a few shadowbloods to five key cities around the world.

I’m seeing broken buildings and bodies from London, New York, Tokyo, and Buenos Aires as well. He’s spreading his message across the continents and both hemispheres, looking to get as many eyes on it as possible at once.

And it is a message, quite literally. His shadowblood thugs left words seared into the sides of buildings they left standing or painted them with the blood of their victims.

The monsters are coming for you!

You can’t fight our power!

Humanity is doomed!

On and on like that, just as Toni suggested Balthazar’s strategy would be. He wants the whole world to realize that the shadowkind exist. To believe that the monsters are rising up against mortals so that people will accept his solutions for getting rid of them.

I don’t know if his extermination plan will actually work, considering how resilient the shadowkind appear to be. But I’d rather not watch and see how many get slaughtered in the fallout, even if I haven’t had the best experiences with some of them.

Rollick doesn’t deserve to be hunted down and murdered. Neither do Pearl or Billy or Sorsha’s men who’ve stood with us.

And let’s be real: Balthazar doesn’t like the shadowkind essence inside us shadowbloods either.

I’ll bet the second he thinks the full “monsters” are gone and he doesn’t need his hybrids to do his dirty work anymore, he’ll consign us to the slaughter next.

I lift my gaze from the tablet’s screen to the helicopter window, taking in the clouds streaking past below us. “How much longer until we get to London?”

Rollick gives me a baleful look from his seat at the front of the aircraft. “About ten more minutes. This is as fast as the chopper can go, little banshee. And I’m still not sure making the trip was the wisest idea in the first place.”

I was the one who first insisted that we had to help somehow, but Jacob speaks up before I need to. “Shadowbloods trashed the city. Now shadowbloods will pick up the pieces. Someone has to tell the real story.”

The demon shrugs. “The mortals may not listen to you.”

“We have to try,” I say, hugging myself. “And maybe if we see firsthand what Balthazar’s new shadowbloods did, we’ll get a better idea of what they’re capable of, their tactics—how to fight back when we go after them directly.”

Rollick nods. I think that point is the only reason he agreed to escort us to London at all.

My search for Balthazar’s current location didn’t prove all that useful. If he’s going to be moving around all the time, how can we plan an attack properly?

We need more information, more of an edge… And I can’t stand the thought of abandoning all the people he’s hurt and terrorized when we’re more equipped to step in than anyone else could be.

Griffin has taken the seat next to me. He grasps my hand and strokes his thumb over the back of my knuckles. “We’ll do everything we can.”

Zian’s face is taut with bottled anger. “We can’t let that psycho get away with this.”

As far as I can tell, it’s just us six shadowbloods and Rollick in the chopper, although for all I know a few more shadowkind tagged along in the darkness.

After the news came in, Rollick ordered the rest of his people to investigate the more distant incidents that they can reach quickly via their portals to and from the shadow realm—and continue devising strategies for our theoretical counterattack.

“Here we go,” the demon murmurs. The helicopter lurches a bit on a gust of wind as it begins its descent. “Brace yourselves.”

I don’t think he’s talking only about the drop to the ground. As the vehicle rushes down toward the sprawl of the city below us, I peer through the window at the chaos of darting figures and flashing lights.

We came by chopper specifically so that we could land right at the scene. A jet might have made the trip faster, but we’d have had to trek through the city from the outskirts after we arrived.

In this aircraft, we’re able to touch down on a broad stretch of pavement next to a jumble of pale, cracked stone that has enough glass and carved edges mixed in to make it obvious it used to be a building.

Never having seen London except as a backdrop to an occasional movie, I have no idea which building until Rollick shuts off the engine and glances over the scene with a pained slant to his mouth. “So long, Westminster Abbey.”

The second we pour out of the helicopter’s door, several of the figures picking their way across the rubble and pacing around it turn our way. “Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” someone in a bright orange vest shouts.

Griffin steps to the front of our group, his fingers curling toward his palms. With our newly deepened connection, I can feel the quiver of energy that ripples off him as he extends his talent over the scattered rescue crews.

The faces that had twisted with confusion or aggression relax. Everyone goes back to the work they were already doing: hustling uncovered bodies into waiting ambulances, searching the wreckage for more.

I spot a couple of lingering news crews farther away, looking like they’re interviewing one of the rescue workers and a couple of passersby. One of the reporters glances toward us, but Griffin sends an extra waft of disinterest her way.

When he speaks, the slight edge to his voice reveals how much of a strain it’s taking to impose this calm over all those people at once. “I’ll keep my attention on keeping their attention off us. I’ll give you as long as I can, but I don’t know how long that’ll be.”

The rest of us don’t need any further prompting to spring into action. Leaving Rollick in the cab of the chopper, ready in case we need to beat a hasty retreat, we scramble into the ruins of the old church.

I only have a vague impression in my memory of what it might have looked like before, but I can tell it was fucking huge . There’s a full city block of broken stone strewn around us like low, shattered hills.

I have no idea how many bystanders might have been buried when the criminal shadowbloods attacked. I drag in a deep breath, tasting the air for panicked pheromones, but there are too many lacing the breeze from the people all around us for me to narrow down anyone injured.

Zian’s head jerks around. “I can hear a groan—faint, but it’s definitely someone down there. Come on!”

We hustle after him until he stops near one of the larger heaps of rubble. Dominic takes a quick glance around. He points to a row of shrubs that just escaped the devastation. “I’m going to grab a couple of those so I have energy for healing.”

Jacob is already motioning at the chunks of stone with his hand, his telekinetic powers heaving one and then another slab farther away. As I dive in to heft up one boulder with my supernatural strength, Andreas swallows audibly.

“I’m not sure there’s any way I can really help with rescuing people,” he says. “I—I’ll do a circuit of the scene, peek into people’s memories. Maybe I can find someone who witnessed the attack and can give me a clearer look at the new shadowbloods.”

I shoot him a quick smile. “Good idea.” Then I bend down over the next hunk of rock.

Zian lends both his strength and the cutting edge of his X-ray vision, wrenching one jagged block out of the way with his bulging arms while he cracks another into pebbles with his eyes.

Between the three of us shifting debris out of the way, I’ve only just started to break a sweat when I spot the green fabric of a sleeve through a gap.

“There!” I pry up the next chunk more carefully, not wanting to send any others crashing down on the victim.

We’ve uncovered all but the woman’s lower legs when Dominic hurries back to us, dragging a bush he’s uprooted. His tentacles unwind from beneath the thin jacket he hastily threw on over his tee before we left.

When I catch his gaze, he offers a tight smile. “Anyone who notices might as well see that some monsters aren’t out to hurt them.”

He kneels down by the woman, one tentacle twining with the shrub’s branches and the other looping around her arm. She gazes up at him with glazed eyes, blood dappling her cheeks and her sweater.

Dominic aims a softer smile at her, his voice equally gentle. “I’m going to patch you up. It’ll be okay.”

Before our eyes, the bruising on her forehead fades. The hitch leaves her breath.

Jacob casts his gaze around. “There are probably more buried survivors. We should keep searching.”

There isn’t anything more the three of us can do for this woman now that Zian has lifted the last rock from her feet. We prowl off over the unstable terrain, our ears pricked and eyes scanning.

Zian lets out an urgent sound and directs us to another spot where he caught a sound of distress. We dig into the rubble again without hesitation. Despite the chilly winter air, beads of perspiration roll down my back beneath my own hastily grabbed jacket.

“It’s only a small part of the city they destroyed,” Jacob remarks in a momentary pause between shifting boulders.

I think of the footage I watched. “They wanted to be quick, in and out before anyone could pay much attention to what exactly was happening. Before there’d be much evidence for us to see and use to track them. The main point was the message.”

I pause, adjusting my grip on the rough edge of another stone slab. This one is sculpted with lines I can tell were once elegant.

My throat tightens. “And this was a place that meant a lot to people. Centuries of history. They went for size of emotional impact rather than hitting a whole bunch of buildings.”

The fact that I can understand Balthazar’s reasoning makes me a little queasy, even though I don’t agree with what he’s doing. There’s a method to his madness.

Toni’s words from this morning echo through my head. Willa was there. So they tore her apart. Literally.

And now Balthazar is going to tear apart everything the rest of the world cares about until they agree to strike back against the creatures he blames for his wife’s death. Never mind that only a few of them—maybe only one—actually carried out the murder.

Never mind that they would have seen it as self-defense after he attacked them first.

I unearth a shoe without a foot in it—one so small it has to belong to a child. My gut lurches in the second before Jacob’s eager exclamation. “I see him!”

But just as Zian disintegrates the chunk pinning down the little boy’s chest, the boom of a loudspeaker splits the air. “You three near the trees, move off the wreckage now.”

Our heads swing toward the projected voice.

I haven’t been paying attention to the rumbles of vehicles coming and going.

A military-style truck has parked near the edge of the ruin, and three men with rifles are standing around it, one of them holding the loudspeaker.

Several more figures in police uniforms have appeared, easing onto the rubble toward us.

I glance at Griffin over by the helicopter. His lips are pursed tight, his eyes wide. As if sensing my look, he gives a slight shake of his head.

He can’t push enough emotion on everyone here to stop their interruption. If it wasn’t this group, someone else would be coming after us.

All they see are a bunch of unauthorized strangers, poking around where a bunch of other strangers just caused this whole mess.

“We’re just trying to help!” I call out. “There’s a little boy stuck here. He?—”

“Back away from any injured parties,” the loudspeaker interrupts. “Walk to clear ground and wait for questioning.”

Shit. My gaze darts to Jacob, whose hands have clenched into fists, but we aren’t here to cause more damage ourselves.

“We have to leave,” I say quietly. “No fighting.”

He exhales in a rush, but his shoulders come down from their tensed position. Zian nods with a grimace.

Rather than walking to the nearest edge of the rubble, we head back to the helicopter. Dominic has already moved that way, and I spot Andreas weaving through the people on the fringes to join us there.

Several of the police officers jog over to intercept us. Rollick shoots me a glance through the helicopter’s windshield that feels like an I told you so.

“Stop right there!” one of them hollers.

A growl comes into Zian’s voice. “We’re leaving like you wanted us to.”

The cop’s attention slides to Dominic, with a twitch of his eyes as he takes in the dangling tentacles. “Bloody hell. What are you?”

The guys hop into the helicopter. I brace myself to spring after them and fix the cop with my firmest gaze. “That doesn’t matter. All you need to know is that the person who destroyed everything here was Otto Balthazar.”