Chapter 23
Hail
Raze glances down the city block and pulls back his lips from his teeth in a silent snarl. “Too late again.”
The street looks like a war zone. The rogue shadowkind has been stepping up her game.
One row of neighboring buildings has been reduced to rubble amid the broken skeletons of their frames. A stack of crushed cars at least ten high stands next to them, like some bizarre modern art piece.
Humans would happily do shit like that to each other. They do when they can find the means.
Why is it suddenly such a problem when the perpetrator is a shadowkind?
Oh, right, because if they realize shadowkind exist, they’ll rain down all kinds of hell on us too.
A pang of distress resonates into me from where Peri is studying the ruins nearby. Her mix of grief and guilt makes me want to go over to her—to hug her? To shake some sense into her?
She shouldn’t get this upset over these people who’d murder her if they knew what she is. Why can’t she see that?
I keep my mouth shut, because I know enough by now to realize snarking at her would only make her more upset, and I’d have to feel that too, along with my own guilt.
Mirage cocks his head with a more deflated air than I’m used to from the fox shifter. “Knock ‘em down and build ‘em back up? Can we help fix this?”
One of the shadowbloods who’s joined us, a guy nearly as pale as I am whose demeanor is awfully icy too, shakes his head. “I could use my telekinetic power to lift up the blocks, but I don’t have a clue about the engineering that goes into making a whole building stable.”
Riva pats his shoulder. Her touch seems to melt a little of the tension from his stance as if by magic. “No one expects you to handle it all yourself, Jake.”
She glances at the rest of us. “Rollick is arranging for some workers to volunteer in the rebuilding under the guise of one of his corporations… But that doesn’t help unless the buildings stop being knocked down.”
My self-control wavers, and my mouth pops open despite my intentions. “Maybe the humans should move someplace else. They have lots of other cities. Let the shadowkind have this one.”
Raze glowers at me. “You know that’s not a good idea, even if there was any chance of them agreeing to it. They shouldn’t have to leave just because one higher being has gone insane.”
Insane or committed to dealing out reasonable justice?
I manage to hold in that question, through considerable effort. “Fine, fine. When you have a better idea, let me know about it.”
Raze, Mirage, and Peri start murmuring to each other, maybe about the actually insane plan to trot her out as bait. Do they really want to offer up our cream puff to a shadowkind they see as a maniac?
I might not blame this weird being for the havoc she’s wreaked on the mortal city, but she knows we’ve been trying to stop her. Attacking Peri would also be justified from her perspective.
And based on past experience, none of us would be able to dash in there fast enough to stop her. Even Peri’s startling power might not do much good against this being, if she could manage to blast her energy out despite the fact that she wants to help the vigilante, not harm her.
As that unnerving thought shudders through my mind, a twinge of a different sort of discomfort touches my fae senses. Like a forest creature caught in a trap… except there’s no forest here, not really.
My head swivels toward the impression instinctively. With a few steps, the tug gets stronger.
Some part of the natural world has been disrupted. I can feel it the same way I picked up on the mindless aggression of the shadowkind Peri’s sorcerer sent to attack us weeks ago.
I don’t like the idea of explaining my fae awareness to the others or looping them in on my private quest. Without glancing back, I call over a vague remark. “I’m going to check something out. I won’t go far.”
Raze lets out a huff. “I don’t think that’s a good—”
There’s a rustle that I think is the shifting of Peri’s leather jacket over her dress as she grasps his arm. “It’s fine. Maybe Hail will notice something the rest of us wouldn’t. There’s no reason we have to do everything together.”
“Thanks, Cream Puff!” I toss out.
The words come out more mocking than I meant them. I do appreciate her offering me my space—but it also gnaws at me that she thinks she needs to defend me.
My resentment isn’t really her fault, though.
I stalk out of my teammates’ view as quickly as I can, shedding the sense of their curious—and probably wary—gazes following me. The faint pulsing of Peri’s concern clings on through the glowing spot on my chest that I can’t tune out.
I ignore it as well as I can and focus on the prickle of distress I caught. There’s a creature in trouble somewhere nearby… Maybe more than one creature?
I veer down an alley that runs between the backs of the buildings to allow deliveries and other vehicle access. As I come up on the wrecked stores, my steps slow.
A small, furry figure squirms beneath the rubble. Plumes of smoky essence streak up toward the darkening sky.
My heart lurches. It’s not just a creature but a shadowkind being—a lesser one, but that doesn’t mean it deserves to be in pain. And it must be in a lot if it can’t concentrate well enough to escape into the shadows.
A recent memory twists my gut. Am I going to have to freeze it out of its misery—and its entire life—like I did those strange creatures that jumbled together?
Fuck, I hope not.
As I hurry over with a lump in my throat, a plaintive mew reaches my ears from elsewhere in the rubble. There is another creature trapped here.
I work quickly, tugging at the chunks of brick and concrete until I uncover the first. The shadowkind creature looks mostly cat-like other than a pair of gills that flap open for it to breathe, hidden beneath its shaggy gray fur.
Or at least I assume it’ll look cat-like when it isn’t pouring out essence from several slashes in its lean body.
A blow from a chunk of concrete wouldn’t have dealt those narrow wounds. It wasn’t only injured by the falling rubble.
The rogue shadowkind must have hit it with her claws or her wild power before the collapse.
Why would she hurt a little shadowkind being?
I scoop it up in my hands and press my fingers to the wounds. To my relief, I can tell the creature isn’t too far gone to be healed.
I can save this being even if I couldn’t the others earlier this evening.
Steadying my mind, I summon my icy power. Ever so carefully, I exude the chill into the creature—just enough to seal the flesh and stop the worst of the bleeding.
“Come with me,” I murmur to it, as if I’m going to give it a choice, and carry it into the shadows.
As the darkness at the edge of the alley closes around us, the creature gives a little shake and seems to perk up. In the shadows, its wounds close even more quickly. I can feel its essence binding together into a more cohesive form.
After a matter of minutes, it squirms as if trying to crawl out of my arms back toward the heap of rubble. Another of those pitiful mews reaches my ears.
“Fine,” I tell it, and pull us back into corporeal form. The shadowkind creature leaps out of my hold and scampers to a trash bin that’s partly crushed, its lid held down by a few fallen bricks.
I knock those aside and open the lid to find an actual cat—mortal and bleeding crimson liquid from a shallow cut on its hind leg.
The shadowkind sort-of cat makes an urgent yipping sound. I lift out the mortal cat and set my hand against its wound.
I can’t close that up as effectively as I could the shadowkind creature’s injuries, but I can freeze the surface into a scab-like material that’ll stave off more bleeding and numb the poor animal’s pain.
As soon as I’ve finished, the cat wriggles out of my arms. The shadowkind creature immediately bumps heads with it and rubs their sides together.
“So you’re best buddies, huh?” I say, bemused. I guess there isn’t anything so odd about that if their natures are similar despite their differing origins.
The cat makes a throaty sound that the shadowkind creature echoes. They bound off down the alley with more vigor than I’d have expected after their recent trauma.
What if they re-open their wounds? I trail behind them with an uneasy sense of urgency.
They only travel a couple of blocks before leaping from a dumpster to a window ledge and then onward to a fire escape. I meld into the shadows again to follow them up to the third floor.
There, they both scratch on a windowpane. After a moment, an elderly human man slides the window open.
He clucks his tongue at the two creatures affectionately, obviously unaware that one of them isn’t actually a cat. “Hungry again, are you? I spoil you two. Hold on.”
He putters off and returns with two dishes full of canned tuna. Both cats chirp in approval and dig in without hesitation.
Clearly this ritual has been going on for a long time. And the man indulges them, to no benefit I can see to himself.
As he offers one cat and then the other creature a gentle stroke of the back, his gaze travels toward the site of the recent destruction. A frown darkens his face.
I don’t need Peri’s powers to know that he’s worried.
Why wouldn’t he be? The shadowkind being who’s tearing up his city doesn’t care who she hurts. She didn’t even care that she nearly killed two creatures who were simply roaming through the city trying to survive, blameless in anything she could be angry about.
She wants to destroy everything.
I linger in the shadows, sitting with that knowledge. Letting it percolate through every particle of my being.
I can’t say that Viscera is any less evil than the humans I’ve raged against in the past. She’s worse than plenty of them. Certainly much more of a menace than this old man who enjoys offering food to stray cats and shadowkind.
Even I’ve hurt people who didn’t deserve it, haven’t I? I’ve been a jerk to most of the other shadowkind at the school. Peri sure as hell never did anything to deserve all the cutting remarks I’ve shot her way.
How is being angry an excuse if you savage so many beings other than the rightful targets?
If I’ve been this furious at humans for the acts only a few of them carried out… Wouldn’t they be just as understandably enraged at shadowkind over the pain this one rogue is causing?
I ball tighter in my patch of darkness, stewing in those thoughts.
What am I supposed to do? I can’t stop being pissed off over what happened. Maybe I can’t be anything except a jerk.
Peri doesn’t believe that, though.
At the memory of all the sympathetic words and gestures of trust she’s offered me, my emotions tangle even more. But the image of her bright smile and the rainbow of colors that can gleam in her vibrant hair sends a reassuring warmth through the worst of my turmoil.
For moments here and there when I’ve been around her, I haven’t felt like such a jerk after all. I’ve felt like I really was part of a team.
I shoved her away, again and again. But she’s always been there. Always been ready for me to get my head out of my ass.
She could blast my essence to bits if she really wanted to, but she’d rather hold out her hand to take mine, no matter how much I scoff and sneer.
This glowing spot in the middle of me was one more gift, one more sign of the faith she has that I’m more than the asshole I’ve acted like.
I’ve never thanked her for that faith. It’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever done for me, and I’ve acted like it was an insult.
And she’s so strong she’s taken all my bitterness and still been able to speak in my favor just an hour ago. She never lets anything shake her generosity for long.
Why the fuck have I been fighting so hard against her? Because I didn’t want to admit how much I’ve screwed up, as if I can pretend it didn’t happen?
All the sanctuaries I’ve ever built have been made out of frigid ice. Peri’s the only being I’ve ever met who I could imagine bringing them to life—and wanting to.
I need to show her. Somehow… I need to show her everything.
I set off through the shadows, following my sense of where I’m meant to be, where I can be most at home. Knowing it won’t mean anything unless I can share it with her.