Page 241 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

Twenty-One

Riva

I can’t stop prowling through the hotel room. Every luxurious feature my gaze passes over somehow sets off my annoyance all over again.

When we first got to enjoy Rollick’s opulent tastes, I appreciated the indulgence. It was thrilling to experience that kind of extravagance after a lifetime of tiny prison cells and tasteless food.

Now, the fluffy duvet and elegant furniture of the place where he got us rooms just remind me of how little I fit in here.

I was raised in prison cells. I should know how to get through to the other shadowbloods, both the kids and the former inmates.

So why are they still out there, driving around in stolen cars, launching crazed attacks, while I’m roaming around this pretty bedroom?

Andreas looks up from where he’s been scrolling through his phone while propped against the mahogany footboard. “It looks like there are only a few dead. It could have been a lot worse.”

The guys all tramped in here to join me about ten minutes ago after seeing the morning news. It’s playing on the huge TV mounted on the wall now: scenes of smashed signs and shattered glass, crumpled cars and blood-splattered sidewalks.

Our fellow shadowbloods were only more furious after we deflected their attack on the hunter group they meant to slaughter, however badly the confrontation fell apart in the end. They took out their anger on downtown Memphis.

There might be only a few deaths so far, but the text scrolling across the bottom of the TV screen mentions more than twenty hospitalized for their injuries. If it’d been any earlier in the night—more restaurants open, more people on the streets…

As I imagine the carnage, I shudder.

Jacob is pacing too, near the door, with a scowl darkening his face. “It will be worse if those fuckers keep this up. Who are they kidding, saying they’re just destroying the things that are wrong? They’re bashing up whatever the hell they feel like.”

Dominic swipes his hand across his weary face where he’s sitting on the chair by the executive-style desk. “Maybe they think everyone and everything except them is broken. This is the world the guardians came from, after all. Every ‘normal’ person is afraid of monsters.”

Zian looks like he’s considering kicking the foot of the bed in frustration but then thinks better of it, maybe because of how expensive the bedframe looks. He growls under his breath. “They can’t just kill everyone in the whole world.”

Jacob lets out a raw laugh. “They can try.”

Griffin has perched on the edge of the desk itself. He casts his gentle gaze across all of us. “We’ll get through to them. They’ve got more going on inside them than just anger.”

I drop down on the side of the bed, my head drooping. “But how are we going to do that? We weren’t even strong enough to get them under control with a bunch of the shadowkind there to back us up.”

We couldn’t have known that the hunters would notice the fight and charge in before we’d finished what we started—but where can we catch the rampaging shadowbloods that we won’t risk being interrupted?

It’s not as if I can blame the hunters for trying to protect their communities from the violence we brought down on them.

My gaze veers to the TV screen again, to worried bystanders with panicked eyes being interviewed by a reporter. Terrified of beings like me.

The words that’ve been solidifying in my head over the past several hours—possibly the past several days, if I’m being honest—tumble out. “Maybe Engel was right.”

Jacob’s head jerks toward me as his feet jar to a stop. “ What? ”

I can’t quite stomach the disbelief I know will be etched on all the guys’ faces, so I stare down at my lap instead.

“She thought we were too dangerous. That the guardians should get rid of us rather than trying to keep using us, because we’d end up doing worse things than the monsters they wanted us to fight.

Aren’t the other shadowbloods proving her point right now? ”

“That’s the rest of them, not us,” Zian says with a wave of his hand toward the screen. “And Balthazar made them like that after Engel was already gone.”

My throat constricts. “Kind of. He used her formulas to make whatever injections and pills let him give the criminals their new powers and enhance the ones the kids already had.”

I pause and force myself to lift my head. If I’m going to say this, I have to be brave enough to face the reactions I’ll get. “Haven’t you ever wondered if we could end up becoming just as unhinged as the others are? What if Balthazar just sped them along on a path we’re heading down too?”

Griffin blinks at me as if he really hadn’t ever considered that possibility. I guess that’s reassuring, considering he has the deepest access to our inner states.

Dominic’s pensive expression suggests that he has thought along those lines before, though, and he doesn’t like where those thoughts have taken him.

Jacob and Zian just look peeved.

Andreas reaches across the bed to rub my back reassuringly.

“I don’t think it does us any good to speculate about things that haven’t even started to happen.

We’ve had stronger powers than the kids for our whole lives, and even when we were pushed to our limits, we didn’t lash out like they are now. ”

Zian speaks up carefully. “Balthazar must have added to whatever Engel was doing, right? I mean, if she could have turned grown-ups into shadowbloods rather than having to raise us the whole way from when we were babies, it’d have been a lot faster.”

I sigh and let myself lean into Andreas’s touch. “I don’t know. We can’t really know for sure. But we can’t let the other shadowbloods keep going like this. And talking to them hasn’t gotten us anywhere so far.”

Griffin tips his head to the side, studying me. “You’re not really thinking that we should kill all of them after all.”

I grimace and shake my head. “I don’t like the idea of killing any of them, especially after what you said about that one guy and what you felt from him.

Is it fair for us to decide that all of the adults Balthazar changed must be evil just because they were criminals?

That’s exactly the same way so many people would look at us because of our powers!

We’ve done criminal things too. No matter how it happened, we’re all blood. ”

“We can’t keep trying to reason with them,” Jacob puts in. “They’ll just take off, no matter what we do.”

“I know.”

A sound like a cleared throat carries through the room. As I startle, Rollick appears by the door, the shadowkind version of stepping inside.

From his solemn expression and his opening words, I suspect he didn’t just arrive. He sweeps his gaze across all of us, his hands slung in his pockets but his posture tense. “You definitely need to come up with a solid new plan soon.”

My stomach clenches. “Are the shadowkind complaining again?” Or worse, outright abandoning ship? I don’t know how we’re going to stop the shadowbloods who’ve gone rogue, but I’m sure we can’t do it just the six of us on our own.

The demon sighs. “No more than usual. They understand that last night went wrong due to circumstances beyond your control. But with each additional assault from that pack of shadowbloods, you’re risking an even bigger problem on your hands.”

A chill washes over my skin. “What do you mean?”

The corners of Rollick’s mouth tighten. “I was hoping we didn’t have to worry about this. They’ve been quiet and detached from events in the mortal realm for years since a rather uncomfortable incident they’d prefer everyone forgets.”

“Who’s ‘they’?” Jacob demands.

“I’m getting to that.” Rollick brushes his hands together as if he wishes he could wash himself clean of the issue that easily.

“Among the shadowkind, there are a few particularly ancient and powerful beings we call the Highest. No one can remember them coming into existence—they were around before any of us. They never leave the shadow realm, but they do try to control what happens on both sides of the rifts, mostly with an eye to making sure they won’t be disturbed. ”

Dominic’s forehead has furrowed. “What does that have to do with us and the other shadowbloods?”

“Well, the Highest are even less fond of hybrids than any shadowkind you’ve met before.

They spent a few decades trying to track down Sorsha and exterminate her before she managed to convince them that she was a greater help against potential threats than one herself.

And they don’t like any disruptions in the mortal realm that could draw attention to our existence. ”

My heart sinks. “Crap. That ship has already sailed.”

Rollick gives a curt nod. “It seems word has finally reached them that something has gone amiss over here. I had one of their errand beings approach me earlier this morning wanting to know if I had any information about the current turmoil.”

Zian turns a bit green. “What did you tell them?”

The demon shrugs. “That it appeared to be a bunch of mortals playing at being monsters, and I was working on dealing with it. But I’m not sure if that lie will cut it for very long.”

I swallow thickly. “And what happens if the Highest decide to intervene?”

Rollick meets my eyes with an apology in his gaze. “Extermination is their usual go-to strategy.”

A groan of frustration escapes me. I rub my temples as if I can jostle a useful thought out of the turmoil that’s going on in my own head.

After a moment, I glance up at Rollick again. “How do you handle it? There are destructive shadowkind, and ones who act out for good reason. You don’t like seeing your own kind destroyed, do you?”

He makes an awkward gesture, and I can’t help remembering that I’ve seen him threaten and maim beings who betrayed him before. For all I know, he kills other shadowkind on a regular basis.

But even if he does, from what I’ve seen of the demon, I don’t think he’s happy about it.

“I have to be firm,” he says finally. “I can’t maintain authority if the beings who deal with me don’t believe there’ll be consequences for stepping out of line.

But I do try to adjust those consequences depending on the circumstances and motivations of those involved.

I understand why you want to simply rein your fellow shadowbloods in rather than outright murdering them. ”

Something about those words, rein them in , sparks the inspiration I was searching for. I sit up a little straighter. “That’s it.”

Andreas shoots me a curious look. “What?”

“We can’t get the other shadowbloods to listen to us when they’re roaming around, and as long as they’re on the loose, they’ll keep attacking people.

So we’ll just have to restrain them. Capture them and hold them someplace where they can’t do any more damage while we figure out how to get through to them. ”

Jacob frowns. “Stick them in a sort-of prison. Like the guardians were always doing. Like Balthazar did.”

The truth of his words makes my stomach churn, but I barrel onward.

“It isn’t the same. We’d be doing it so that we can save them, not to use them.

And the fact that the guardians could do it without any powers of their own proves that we should be able to round the rogue shadowbloods up too, especially with help from the shadowkind. ”

And it’s a lot better than asking Sorsha to simply incinerate them all.

Dominic nods slowly. “We’ll need to figure out a place where we can catch them where we shouldn’t be interrupted like last night. And we’d need to go in looking to disable them or knock them out right from the start, no trying to talk and giving them the chance to prepare for an attack.”

“How are we going to capture them?” Zian asks. “They’re pretty good at fighting back. Even if we can surprise them…”

I turn back to Rollick. “We’ll need to come up with a plan with any shadowkind allies who have abilities that would allow them to overpower people without doing major damage.”

The demon rubs his chin. “I can think of a few already who’d be well-suited to that task.”

I glance around at the guys. “I’m not sure how useful the rest of us will be toward that goal…

Andreas could confuse them with projected memories, but Griffin hasn’t been able to impose any emotions on them before.

I guess Zian and Jacob and I could slow them down by breaking bones, but…

that’ll just make them angrier, and it won’t get in the way of a lot of their powers. ”

“There are a lot of them,” Griffin points out. “It’ll be difficult to tackle them all at once effectively.”

“Yeah.” I hesitate, my mind spinning, and then the idea hits me like a punch to the chest. “Balthazar managed it, though. He stopped all of us and Sorsha when we came after him at his mountain base—with the device that made that awful sound. It was impossible to concentrate enough to aim our talents. That should work on the other shadowbloods too.”

Zian cocks his head. “And the rest of us… wear earplugs?”

I can’t restrain a laugh. “Whatever works. They’ll need to be really good earplugs, but we already thought of that when we were worried about Balthazar trying it on us again.”

A pleased gleam has come into Rollick’s eyes as he watches us pull our scheme together. He motions toward the TV. “You’ll also need a means of determining where your fellow shadowbloods might go next—and I think we may have that right here.”

A group of silver-helmed figures have appeared on the screen. As I shift my attention to the interview being conducted, one of them pumps his fist in the air.

“We won’t be knocked down, no matter what those fiends try to throw at us! Just let them try any of that BS in Chicago.”

A shiver runs down my back. “You think the rogue shadowbloods will see that and take the challenge?”

Rollick offers me a small smile. “I wouldn’t be surprised.

They do seem to be rather impulsive. And Chicago is along the trajectory they were already on.

I’d imagine our best strategy would be to check for other similar declarations in the area and then monitor which direction the kids you can track start heading in. ”

And then we attack. I drag in a breath, repeating to myself that we’re doing the right thing, that this is the best option we have.

Then I reach toward the bedside table for my phone. “I’m going to call Toni and see what she can tell us about Balthazar’s tech. He used us in plenty of ways. Now we might as well use whatever we can from him.”