Chapter Six
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JAZMINE SAT ON HER couch, staring at the painting of the boy wearing blue.
She wasn’t sure why she was so entranced with it, or why it brought her mind so much calm.
Her imagination had always been vivid, probably from being locked up for almost two decades of her life.
In her mind, she walked through a field with the mysterious boy.
They talked about what the world was like before and after the Rapture.
She told him about her powers and that she’d killed dozens of humans.
He listened without judgement and encouraged her to keep practicing her talents.
Something tugged at the edges of her radar, snapping Jazmine out of her daydream.
She turned to the window to see the sun was beginning to set.
Her sire had come to check up on her again.
Lachial had been hovering around at nightfall for the past few days.
Word had finally spread to the soldiers about the militants’ deaths.
Her father was trying to catch her in the act of murder.
“I’m too smart to fall into his trap,” Jazmine said craftily.
Lachial didn’t seem to realize how strong her senses were.
He had no idea she could detect him before he sensed her.
Her more powerful skills had kept her from being busted several times now.
She knew she was stronger than any of his previous offspring, but it was still a mystery why.
The walky-talky she’d stolen from a dead mercenary came to life on the couch beside her. “There’s no movement here so far,” a soldier reported from the back of her building. Two of Lachial’s guards were stationed there to keep watch.
“It’s not dark yet,” her sire snapped. “She won’t leave until the sun goes down.”
“I won’t be going anywhere while you idiots are spying on me,” the cambion murmured. She always switched the device off and hid it under the couch cushion when she sensed her father entering the building. There was no danger of that with him lurking outside, waiting futilely for her to emerge.
Darkness slowly encroached on Manhattan.
The tall shadows cast by the skyscrapers began to fade, then the streetlights came on.
Nightbirds called out to each other as they flew past her building in search of food.
No one moved on the streets below when she got up to peer out through the window.
Even the humans sensed danger near her building and avoided the place.
A smile lifted her lips for a moment at that thought.
Jazmine knew she exuded an aura of menace that kept people away.
It had helped keep her safe during her incarceration, but it wasn’t infallible.
Even Lachial was affected by it. She’d seen a hint of fear in his icy pale blue eyes from time to time when he came to bring her some supplies.
Inactivity was beginning to wear on the shadow wielder’s nerves.
She longed to escape from her apartment and go on the hunt.
Her targets had been increasingly vocal about their fears of being murdered.
Governor Giamano had ordered his militants to always move in groups now.
The humans were too scared to walk alone or even in pairs.
Body parts from her victims had washed up on the shore too many times now.
She’d heard all of this over the walky-talky when switching from channel to channel. It had taken patience to find the channel the mercenaries used to communicate with each other on.
“Now I can listen to everything they say,” Jazmine said with a smirk.
Most of it was boring. The humans kept their commanding officers informed about the supplies they found or survivors they rounded up.
When she switched to the soldiers’ channel, their reports were usually just as mundane.
Most of them were searching for cambions like her.
They also captured any survivors and sent them to be processed to become mercs or slaves.
Jazmine made herself dinner out of canned vegetables and crackers and sat back down on the couch. Hours passed and her impatience grew. Finally, she got the break she’d been waiting several days for.
“A knight has been spotted near the Henry Hudson Bridge!” a soldier reported in. “Alpha Team are to head there asap!”
Jazmine had learned that Alpha Team consisted of the soldiers who’d sired cambions. Beta Team was the rest of Rahab’s squad. They’d only recently begun calling themselves by these names.
“It’s about time,” Jazmine said when she felt Lachial racing away with his guards following in his wake.
Shooting to her feet again, the shadow wielder pulled on black sneakers to go with her dark outfit.
She raced downstairs and exited through the back door.
Taking dark alleyways, Jazmine sprinted eastward and crossed a bridge into Queens.
The humans on patrol didn’t even notice her, thanks to her speed and the shadows she’d pulled around herself.
She’d decided to avoid Brooklyn, which had been her old hunting ground.
No one would expect the murders to take place in another borough.
Groups of four soldiers were prowling around, but she easily avoided them.
The mercenaries were scouring every home and apartment for food in every borough and beyond.
All of the buildings she passed had been looted as she searched for prey.
Doors stood open and some windows had been smashed to gain entry.
At last, Jazmine picked up on a small group of mercs. Only five instead of eight or ten humans were clustered together. She knew she could take down five foes at once, since she’d done it before.
Creeping up on her targets, the cambion avoided the streetlights as she waited for her chance to strike. Shadows shrouded her from view, hiding her completely.
“There haven’t been any murders for four days now,” one of the humans said. “Do you think the culprit is dead?”
“Who knows?” one of his friends said with a shrug. They all wore camouflage clothing as well as the white armbands. Their souls were black, just like every other mercenary she’d sensed lately.
“I think it was one of Rahab’s sicko gang members,” another militant said, keeping his voice down. “The drugs they take to make them so big has messed with their heads.”
“How can any drug make their eyes go red like that?” a male asked with a shudder. “It isn’t natural.”
“Mr. Lawson should give us the green light to wipe those freaks out,” the fifth prepper declared. “We’ll have full control of Manhattan once Rahab and his friends are gone.”
“There are fewer than ninety bikers,” another militant mused. “We outnumber them by thousands. We’ll easily mow them down with our guns.”
“Governor Giamano thinks we still need them,” one of his companions said in derision. “He thinks the city will fall apart again without Xathan in charge of the infrastructure.”
“That bald weirdo?” a male said incredulously. “He’s the first biker we need to shoot between the eyes.”
They chuckled and Jazmine moved closer. One of them made the worst mistake of his life by deciding they should cut down an alley.
The cambion ghosted after them and her shadows came to life.
Her hands rose, then she made a throwing motion.
Black coils of shadow boiled towards her quarry.
Wrapping around their necks tightly enough to cut off their speech, she lifted them off their feet.
With her prey within her grasp, she raced towards the closest shoreline.
One of the preppers managed to pull the pistol from the holster on his hip.
He fired wildly as Jazmine skidded to a stop just as she reached the water.
Pain blazed through her right wrist when the bullet hit her.
She lifted her arm and peered through the hole in her flesh that was causing her so much agony.
The prepper fired off another shot, but this one missed her by two feet.
Rage filled the cambion. More shadows sprang into being and stripped the weapons from her struggling prey.
Legs kicking futilely, they tried to pry the dark ropes from around their necks.
Jazmine pointed the guns she’d just confiscated from them at the male who’d shot her.
Shadowy fingers pulled the triggers in a deafening roar of gunfire.
Body jerking at the hail of bullets, the prepper sagged lifelessly, dripping blood from his wounds.
Shouts came from the distance and Jazmine knew she couldn’t linger. With regret, she turned the guns on the other four men. Emptying the magazines into their bodies, the cambion dropped the corpses and the weapons and sprinted away.
“At least Lachial won’t be able to pin these murders on me,” she said, then giggled insanely. Her talents were more useful than she’d realized. While it was fun to rip her evil targets apart, there were far more subtle ways she could kill people with her shadows.
Reaching her apartment, she was relieved to see her sire was still gone.
She checked her wound to see it was healing quickly.
Jazmine had never experienced pain that intense before and she never wanted to go through it again.
She took a quick shower, then changed her clothes and ambled to the kitchen.
Lachial appeared on her radar moments later, but he passed by quickly.
More Soldiers of Chaos from Alpha Team followed him and his guards.
They were all heading in the same direction.