Page 68 of Walking in Darkness

Waiting for that tsunami to hit land.

The whole time, they searched for any Laven who might be targeted in Kruens’ minds.

Tracking over the desolate, barren ground, winding through the spindly elms as they raced through the wickedness.

“Take the gun and go in the store. Just walk inside. It’s easy. Point it at the cashier. She’ll give you anything you want.”

Aria heard the intonation in her ear, just off to her left. “This way,” she called to Pax. They shifted course and wound around a boulder.

She and Pax rushed up behind what appeared to be a young Kruen. They gathered the light, projecting it as they ran, never even slowing as they struck. The monster was obliterated in a flash and disintegrated into ash.

They continued to run. Deeper and deeper into the darkness that reigned.

She wasn’t sure when she noticed it, when she felt the creeping of the darkness growing thicker around them. The air becoming tacky. Aria struggled to breathe around it, to shun the sticky awareness that seemed to enclose her like a shroud.

It was as if the filament was taking form, a rippling boundary that sought to box her in.

She pushed herself harder against it, her breaths salient as she panted. Pax fell a step behind her.

And then she felt it distinctly—the air beside her taking shape. A diaphanous barrier that stretched thin like a blackened balloon.

Horror seized her lungs when she felt the presence on the other side of it. One that ran alongside her, separated by that gloomy, translucent veil.

“Do you think you possess the power to defeat me? Do you think you can stop me? I will take such pleasure in ending you.” The voice was hollow. A distant echo. But she recognized it completely.

She knew it, as sure as she knew the face that tracked along at her side.

Ambrose.

Lightning flashed across the horizon, a thunderbolt that streaked through the air just overhead. So close she felt it sizzle across her flesh.

“Aria?” Pax shouted. His boots thundered behind her as he raced to catch up. Anxious confusion twisted through his expression as he caught up and ran along on her opposite side. “What’s happening?”

She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t answer. She could only run.

“You think you can stop me from ending them all?” Ambrose hissed as he swiped a hand in her direction. The boundary stretched thin as he reached for her, and Aria saw the flood of his thoughts as he did.

Only he wasn’t feeding a command to a Kruen or a Ghorl.

It was him, standing outside a tiny white house with a small porch fronted by a green lawn.

He who held the knife when Dani stepped out of the front door and into the light of day.

Dani who bled out on the steps.

No.

Desperation gripped her, and Aria whirled as she ran, attempting to punch her fist through the gauzy barrier, compelling the light to bash through the ward. To leash the fiend. To stop him in his tracks here in the dungeon where he reigned.

But he only laughed as he drifted away. Out of reach. Untouchable.

Before he fully disappeared.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Pax

“What the fuck was that?” It flew from my mouth as I floundered upright in bed.