Page 97 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

He vanishes from view, as neat a trick as the way the shadowkind can merge into the shadows. I wait in a darkened doorway, grappling with my impatience, as he must venture after our potential targets in his invisible state.

A minute later, he reappears next to me.

“It’s them. Some of them. I counted seven, spread out along the street, but one guy talked into a radio, so they’re in contact with others. They’re patrolling, looking into all the buildings.”

Satisfaction sweeps through me. “Good. Then we’ll just have to give them some bait.”

They think we’re in hiding, on the run from them. That we’re too scared to face them head on.

The truth is, we just needed a chance to turn the tables and get the upper hand.

I backtrack, seeking out an ideal site for our ambush. After prowling up and down a few streets, I come across a parking lot behind a bar that’s closed for the night.

The backs of the surrounding buildings close off the rectangular space, the only entrance and exit a short lane onto the street. The bar itself has a rear second-story patio with a thick stone wall undulating along its border.

Now we just need to lure the bastards here.

I motion to the patio above us. “Get up there and wait for me. I’ll bring them around. We want to gather as many of them as possible before I start taking them out. Once they’re in, if they look like they’re aiming to leave, flood their heads with enough memories to keep them confused.”

Andreas nods and reaches for a window ledge to help him scale the lower part of the building.

The training the guardians put us through wasn’t a total waste. I hope someday they find out we put it to use cutting down monster-hunters rather than monsters.

I slip out of the parking lot and glance up and down the nearest street. There’s no sign of our targets, but I know they aren’t far from here.

I train my attention on a statue fixed to the roof of a building on the corner. With a shove of my power, it cracks off its ledge and plummets to the ground.

The cracking thud of the stone form hitting the pavement echoes through the night. I pull back into the mouth of the lane and watch.

It’s less than a minute before footsteps pound close enough for me to hear. Several uniformed figures charge into view down the street.

They gather around the fallen statue, glancing from it to the roof with tensed poses and guns in hand. One of them has something that looks like a glittering net slung over his shoulder, whatever the hell that’s for.

Definitely not normal soldiers. I have a sneaking suspicion that those shiny bullets they fired at us—and into us—were made out of silver, not lead.

The hunters fan out again to search the street. One of them speaks into his walkie talkie.

Good. Bring more of them this way.

With a nudge of my ability, I send an empty pop can rattling across the sidewalk just a few feet from where I’m standing.

The nearest figures jerk around. I let out a curse I muffle badly and take off down the lane, deliberately letting my shoes smack the asphalt harder than they need to.

Hushed hollers pass between the hunters. They rush after me, the sound of their pursuit mingled with more crackling of radio static as they call for backup.

That’s right. Let’s get everyone together now.

Every murderous prick who nearly slaughtered the woman I would die for.

I sprint into the parking lot and throw myself toward the patio using the same route Andreas took. He bobs up from behind the surrounding wall to give me a hand up.

We duck down again behind the jutting chunks of stone just as the first men race into the parking lot in pursuit.

I have to keep them engaged while the others pour in after them. Searching rather than shouting warnings to flee.

Peeking over one of the lower sections of wall, I set a window rattling. As soon as the soldiers rush in that direction, I flick a shingle off a roof on the opposite side.

More hunters are storming into the parking lot. Some of them are whirling with obvious wariness in their stance.

We can’t afford to wait long enough for them to get suspicious. It’s time to end them now.

Like shooting fish in a barrel.

The rage inside me flares through my chest. I lean forward, gripping the edge of the wall, just as the first man steps toward the lane and then stumbles as Andreas’s power floods his mind with memories that aren’t his.

Before my target has had a chance to let out more than the start of a yelp, I whip him against the corner of the nearest building, head first. His skull bursts open like a smashed jack-o-lantern.

More shouts of alarm rise up, faltering as confusion spreads through their ranks. I grin with my teeth bared and topple them one after the other.

Neck snapped. Back cracked.

Shove that one into his own knife, straight through the heart. Slam this one’s face into the pavement until it’s a bloody pulp.

My body hums with the energy whipping out of it. Not a single emotion stirs inside me except the burn of resolve.

Die. Die. Die.

No pausing, no resting. Blazing from each to the next the second I’ve struck them down.

Every last one of the pricks, until Riva can walk safe through these streets again.

But as the skulls shatter and the heads slump, the stabbing sense lances through me that none of this will ever be enough.