Page 225 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

Nine

Riva

F ang smacks his hands against the dining room table, his exhalation hissing around his protruding canines. “Let me get this straight. You had him right there in front of you, and you still didn’t manage to kill this one mortal?”

I grimace at his tone even as my own frustration sweeps through me all over again. “He was prepared—he had this device that totally shattered our concentration. We can’t use our talents if we can’t even think .”

Shanty tosses her dark blue waves over her shoulder and purses her lips. Her voice stays melodic even when criticizing us, which makes more sense now that I know she’s a siren. “None of you could manage to attack him at all?”

Sorsha pipes up before I have to go on defending myself. “I was there too—whatever he used, he designed it very effectively. I couldn’t focus enough to aim my fire. And after I burned down his villa in Italy, he knew to take specific precautions against my powers. This guy thinks of everything.”

I glance down the table toward Rollick, but the demon has been unusually solemn since we returned to his mansion in Spain. I’m hoping he’s just thinking over everything we told him and processing our failure rather than debating continuing to help us at all.

Even the shadowkind who supported us whole-heartedly before have faltered in their confidence.

Thorn rubs his mouth and casts a concerned look at Sorsha. “It does seem odd that he had so many measures in place. Is there some way he could have known we’d strike there?”

Lance’s unnerving violet eyes flash toward the shadowblood end of the table. “Maybe he has some tricksy way of tracking this bunch that we haven’t figured out.”

Toni, who’s been downcast since we arrived and filled her in on our futile efforts, lifts her head. “No. I saw the monitoring system he had set up. He trusted the bracelets would be more than enough.”

“I’ve checked us over for any kind of internal device,” Zian puts in, flexing his shoulders as if daring anyone to challenge his thoroughness.

Jacob braces his hands against the tabletop. “Why do you think we need your help at all? This guy is a maniac, and a fucking smart one. We barely got away from him alive, and we only did because you were helping us then too. We almost died this time.”

A shudder runs down my back at the memory of the rush of water. The chill that gripped me in my drenched clothes as we staggered across the mountain, all of us too busy blasting through the outer guards to worry about comfort.

Once we made it across the border of protective metals, the shadowkind closed in around us like our own personal guard and Sorsha wrapped us in fiery heat.

But there’s still a chunk of ice in the pit of my stomach, thinking of the opportunity we lost. Of the people we left behind.

“We weren’t totally prepared ourselves,” Griffin says softly, presumably picking up on my feelings.

“We thought the shadowblood kids in the base were prisoners, hostages. But it seems that he’s managed to enhance their powers after all, maybe using the same process that’s transforming regular humans into new shadowbloods. ”

We hadn’t mentioned that part to the larger group yet. At Sorsha’s side, the youthful-looking man with the blond curls, who I now know as Snap, knits his brow. “He’s made the younger ones like you who were at the same facilities stronger? They stopped your attack?”

“Yes,” I say with a heavy heart. “They got in our way when we were running after Balthazar. They definitely acted different—and one of them… Before, she could only give off a glow from her skin, nothing all that extreme. Last night, she blinded us with the light, it blazed so bright.”

Dominic nods. “One of the others had some kind of control over the air or weather. They sent a blast of wind into us. None of the shadowblood kids I met before could have pulled off an effect that strong.”

The squat, metallic-scaled demon named Steel aims a scowl at us. “Then they’re part of the problem too. We get rid of all of them.”

My stomach lurches. The protest bursts out of me automatically. “No. They are just kids. We know them. They wouldn’t have wanted to hurt us—he must have forced them to step in. They had the manacles like we used to.”

They didn’t attack us right away. It’s possible they could have killed us if they’d taken us by surprise, hit us as hard as they could while we were reeling from seeing them at all.

But they didn’t. Nadia told us to leave. They only brought out their heightened abilities when I tried to shove past them.

My mind slides back to the last few conversations I had with Nadia.

Her whole personality used to be bright, but she’d deflated in the villa, where Balthazar made it clear he saw her as totally expendable.

But she still lit up a little when I got her talking about the kind of life she wished she could have.

Now he’s dragged her even farther away from that sort of normal. Made her more of a monster.

Although I can’t say I’m completely sure she’d see it that way. The younger shadowbloods expressed disappointment that Balthazar’s early procedures didn’t affect them like they did us—didn’t bring out new dimensions to their powers.

Nadia did tell me once that she wished she could really blaze instead of just the gentle glow she was capable of back then.

Willow, the nymph poised near Rollick, gives a soft huff and rubs at the bark embedded in her forearms. “It all amounts to the same thing. If they’re fighting for him, then you’ve got to fight against them.”

Her use of “you” rather than “we” pricks at my nerves. Is she already pulling back from this war?

“None of the younger shadowbloods have done anything wrong,” I insist. “They’ve been tortured and experimented on for years just like we were. They deserve their freedom. We have to get them out.”

Two chairs down from me, Andreas draws himself up a little straighter. “We’re in this to save all of you from Balthazar’s plans—and the people he’s already hurting—but we always meant to save them too. If he’s pushing them into the battle, then they need our help more , not less.”

Fang’s lips curl in a silent snarl. “I don’t see?—”

“You wouldn’t,” Sorsha says tartly, cutting him off.

“You all know a lot from your long lives as shadowkind, but one thing you should remember you know nothing about is growing up. About being a kid, with all the helplessness and uncertainty that comes with it. I agree with the shadowbloods. The ones that aren’t even grown up yet—they aren’t our enemies. ”

With a rasp of his chair legs, Rollick stands up. My heart skips a beat before he inclines his head toward me.

“The shadowblood children haven’t had a real choice in whether they want to be against us,” he says in his light but measured voice. “I’d say they’re victims in this scenario. We’ll keep them safe if we can.”

Crag leans forward, his stony face darkening. “How are we going to do that if they’re going to attack us, whether they want to or not?”

My hands clasp together under the table. I don’t have a real answer to that question.

I grip my entwined fingers to steady myself.

“It’s going to be difficult. But we’ve pulled off lots of difficult things before.

First… First I guess I need to see if I can predict another base Balthazar is likely to return to.

We’ll be more ready for his protections this time—we can use earplugs, do more scouting to find his entry and exit points?—”

I’m interrupted by a faint pop and the sudden materializing of a slim form. Billy gazes around at us, his faun eyes nearly round. “I—I’m sorry to burst in. I thought you’d want to know. There’s been another attack, and it’s a little… different.”

Uneasy silence grips us. We all push to our feet and hustle to the room that holds Rollick’s huge flat screen TV, which I knew a few of the shadowkind had been monitoring. Some of the beings vanish to dart through the shadows and stay there, but I can’t shake my awareness of their presence.

The TV is on, a news reporter talking in typical clipped tones as a scene of destruction that’s unnervingly familiar plays out on the screen.

I barely pay attention to her voice, focusing on the distant figures ducking in and out of view.

The walls of a massive building are crumbling—some fancy skyscraper in what looks like a downtown core.

Most of the fleeing locals have dark hair and light brown skin, but I can’t get a close enough look at them to determine their ethnicity beyond that. And then something appears on the screen that makes my body go rigid.

Next to me, Zian sucks in a sharp breath. Jacob’s fingers tighten where he’s gripped the top of the sofa.

Soldiers. Soldiers have marched into view at the side of the screen.

That wouldn’t be so surprising. We saw military figures at the scene in London when we tried to help with the rescue efforts.

No, what’s startling is the woven metal vests draped over their typical uniforms. Glinting pale gray… like silver and iron.

Like the protections the guardians wore in the facilities, that they hoped would ward off our shadowy powers. That didn’t work on us, but it would deflect full shadowkind.

More metal flashes in their hands. They’re holding long, pointed guns like silvery bayonets.

My arms rise to hug myself instinctively. Somehow I’m going to bet that both the brutal stabbing protrusions and the bullets loaded into those things are customized to do maximum damage to beings like the ones around me.

“Fuck,” Andreas mutters. “He actually convinced someone to go along with his crazy instructions.”

Dominic lets out a strained chuckle. “They probably don’t sound so crazy when people with impossible abilities keep bashing up cities all over the world.”

Billy bobs nervously on his feet, his gaze skittering between us. “It doesn’t really make sense, though, does it? I thought those metals didn’t have any effect on shadowbloods. And it’s shadowbloods carrying out the attacks.”

Rollick’s lips have flattened into a tight line. “It isn’t what the soldiers do there that matters. It’s what they do later, now that they’re on board.”

“Exactly.” I hug myself tighter. “Balthazar doesn’t want the other armies fighting his army of shadowbloods. He’s prepping them so that they’ll be totally equipped when he talks their governments into hunting down actual shadowkind.”

And if he’s managed to start convincing the world’s leaders to take this much of his advice in just one week… how much longer do we have before he’s directing squads of shadowkind-killers all across the planet?