15. Chapter Fifteen
Nicholas
The citizens of Alogan didn’t sleep. Humans were as content as fae to waste their evenings however they pleased.
Three muggings happened in the last hour.
Men and women wandered into shadowed streets reeking of spirits and despair.
Torches illuminated tavern doorways left open to welcome all. Shanty songs kept the night company.
Nicholas watched all this from the greased rooftops, pacing around the block of Seventh Street near the docks. Evera wandered around the roofs, remaining his shadow while entertaining herself in whatever ways she could.
After the previous night, he didn’t want to leave William’s side.
He received a kiss he so desired. He felt so childish to admit that he thought his heart would burst. But afterward, William had that look; one of pain and worry, where he feared their future, same as Nicholas did.
He yearned to ease William’s discomfort in any way he could, which was how he monitored the docks.
Charmaine and Evera shared that someone lured people with a false job offer. They warned the men who told them about the job, but none knew how many others may have been approached. The stranger, likely the shadowed disciple, wanted to meet near this dock, so he watched for any peculiar guests.
Dawn approached on the promised meeting day.
The older man hadn’t come to the docks. However, a woman in a thin faded green jacket waited, searching left and right.
She stood out because of how long she lingered.
The dock became busy an hour prior to dawn with frequent comings and goings.
Rarely did anyone stand anywhere for long.
Then another peculiar figure appeared, one in a long trench coat whose scent carried over the stench of fish and despair.
Nicholas would recognize that smell anywhere.
He moved, urged to take the monster’s life, knowing that its existence brought William pain. Ever caught his wrist. Her voice came out stern, “If you want to help that mortal of yours, we follow the bastard, not kill them.”
“William will be upset if we let someone get caught,” he countered, although William implied he could do so if it meant capturing the shadowed disciple.
Regardless, he didn’t want to risk causing a rift. He understood William’s concern having shared it himself, but he couldn’t stay away, either. His path, no matter what happened, led to William alone.
The shadowed disciple spoke with the woman.
The disciple ensured no one would recognize him in the large coat with a second underneath; the collar turned up and a newspaper boy hat that shadowed his face.
The disciple kept his hands in his pockets too, meaning she wouldn’t notice his claws or the discoloration of his skin.
All of Fearworn’s followers took on an appearance that none would be foolish enough not to run from.
“William will be more upset if we miss this opportunity and never discover what has happened to any of the patients,” said Evera.
He hated admitting she was right, that she had the thought process necessary to consider their options. At least she didn’t rub it in when she could have. Instead, Evera scampered along the rooftops. In that way, they exchanged positions where Nicholas became her shadow.
The woman agreed to whatever the disciple requested.
“They’re leaving together,” Evera whispered.
“They’re unlikely to head deeper into the city, especially with the extra surveillance,” he explained. “But we cannot lose this one. The disappearances are speeding up. They’re preparing for something.”
His gut told him it had to do with Fearworn, somehow, someway. The bastard must have laid out a plan, or the disciples peered through his work and hoped to recreate it.
Together, they left the docks, and the fae followed.
Evera kept them a street over, out of sight and capable of hiding, should the disciple look back.
The disciple took a road that sloped toward the river, where three men huddled around a rusted barrel.
Flames flickered within, warming their hands, hovering over the flame.
The disciple and his unknowing captive walked past them, with no one offering them a glance.
“How is a disciple getting into the city?” Evera asked. “Don’t the humans have fail-safes to prevent any unwanted visitors?”
“They should. Heign’s Magical Society has formidable mages. They are the ones who learned how to close a scar for a short time, and certainly they can keep their people safe from disciples,” he replied.
“If they aren’t coming through the gates, then they are already here. They may not even be taking the patients out of the city.”
“But that means they’re holding them captive somewhere without either of us sensing them. Considering how many patients they’ve taken, there must be more than one, and that would be impossible to hide from us.”
“I don’t know about impossible.” Evera gazed upon the abandoned buildings and their darkened windows. Alogan had countless places to hide. Their quarry took another corner. They hadn’t left the outer banks, continuing along a pathway through the abandoned warehouses.
“If there were a group of disciples, we’d sense them, like we are now, and I’ve gone over this district multiple times already.” And yet he missed the obvious that Evera spoke of so easily. With the cracks of his mind, he may have missed the obvious again.
“Sir, where are we going? I thought your shop was on main street,” asked the girl. She stopped to examine their surroundings.
“The shop is on main street, but the furniture we are retrieving to take there is this way,” the stranger replied in a hushed voice, like they struggled to enunciate their words.
The woman accepted the excuse. The disciple didn’t rush, did nothing to make himself stand out.
He held a conversation with her, spinning a story about a factory shutting down and having good furniture to sell.
The girl did not know who she followed until the disciple stopped in the middle of an alleyway.
“Down here,” he said, pointing at the street.
“There’s nothing here,” she replied, then he waved his hand over her eyes and she fell into his arms.
The disciple laid her beside a manhole. Once opened, he tossed her over his shoulder and descended into the sewers. Evera and Nicholas shared understanding looks. They weren’t hiding in an abandoned warehouse. The disciples infiltrated beneath the city.
Nicholas stood along the manhole first, where the stench made him ill. Evera openly gagged.
“Mortals are foul,” she hissed.
Sighing, he dropped into the manhole. Evera followed.
The sewer ran all throughout the city, more convoluted than the streets above.
They kept closer to the disciple, mirroring his movements until they came upon the answer to their many questions.
The disciple approached a scar in the middle of a passage, hardly visible to the naked eye.
If it were any larger, it may have caused sickness among the civilians above.
The shadowed disciple walked in, carrying her limp figure over his shoulder.
Evera turned to Nicholas. They shared the same worried expression. The kidnapped patients had been taken to Faerie.
“Weren’t you supposed to have slaughtered these bastards?” She hissed on their way to the exit.
“I lost count of how many I slaughtered, but some kept their heads low, and now we know why,” he replied irritably.
Laurent sent him on a worthless mission. They understood Nicholas couldn’t destroy all of them, considering more could rise after Fearworn’s demise simply to worship the bastard. However, he hadn’t expected the damn creatures to cause problems already.
“No, we have an idea why. They’re up to something foul, but what do they need mortals for?” Evera corrected.
“Food?” Nicholas shrugged.
Evera caught the rings of the ladder and climbed out of the sewer. “This has to do with Fearworn. You’re thinking it, too.”
“I killed him. He’s gone. I…” In truth, he didn’t remember Fearworn’s death.
That moment when William’s breathing stopped, the world faded.
What he recalled was anger and desperation, to finish Fearworn off once and for all so he could save William anyway he could.
There was blood, Fearworn’s body broken in his hands, a sudden change and the need to spare William above all else, but nothing more than that.
Others spoke of the battle, how he and Fearworn became mirrored blazes of light ripping through the sky.
Arden admitted to believing they would all perish as the sky caught fire and that fire rained upon them.
The evergreens sparked and, before they realized it, the battlefield had been consumed, little more than fire and ash.
Nicholas’ first memory from that time was William laid out on a bed, his silver arm draped over his stomach and Laurent leaning over him.
Laurent wore a smile, one of pure villainy, for he had Nicholas trapped.
“How could Fearworn have survived?” he muttered, angered at himself most of all for not ensuring anything remained of the bastard.
“This is the fae who tore a hole into another realm,” Evera said. “Two realms went to war against him for decades. Do you truly believe him incapable of cheating death?”
He wasn’t sure. He didn’t want Fearworn to be. The war ended and that couldn’t change.
“Let us return to William. He must know of this.” He headed for the clinic.
Though it was late, William spent most of his time there, so it was the best place to check first. Evera traveled with him, her hands locked behind her head.
To others, she looked relax, but he knew she watched the corners for signs of another disciple.
Her presence and the help given drew about a worried curiosity.
Laurent told her to monitor him. He knew she would get bored and expected she would follow around, but not take the situation as seriously as this.
“Why did you help?” he asked. “Tonight, you had no reason to stop me from making foolish decisions and don’t use my father as an excuse. We both know you didn’t have to intervene.”
Evera shrugged. “If I’m to follow you, the least you can do is entertain me, and this is entertaining. I enjoy a good mystery.”
Nicholas wouldn’t admit to being grateful. Without her, he may have ruined their best chance to discover where the disciples were going.
They walked the rest of the way in silence. He ascended the warehouse with Evera snickering at his back. “Did your little pet make you promise not to frighten his patients? Poor boy, you have to sneak in.”
“Don’t refer to him as a pet.” He opened a window to step upon the beams. “And yes, the patients are frightened by me, let alone the two of us. We shouldn’t make the sick uncomfortable.”
“As if that has ever stopped you before.” Evera leaned over the beam. Any other would think she was about to fall, teetering on the edge. “Imagine if I dropped right now. How many do you think would croak?”
“Five.” He bit his tongue. “We are not discussing this.”
“I think seven, that one is hardly breathing already.”
He ignored her and set his path to the office.
The office blinds were open. Inside, a handsome man stood at William’s back, slender fingers laid upon his shoulder.
He wore lavish attire, bright and perfectly fitted.
When he spoke, he wore a confident smile, eyes gleaming.
William listened intently, nodding along to whatever the man said, then smiled.
Nicholas’ stomach knotted. His throat tightened.
His steps carried him over the rafters. The stranger leaned over William, too close.
Clenching his jaw, blood filled the gaps between his teeth.
He fell upon the stairs and threw open the door.
The rattling of the windows brought the stranger and William’s gaze to him, both paling at the sight.
“Nicholas,” William hardly spoke before he lunged across the room.
Papers scattered. William fell out of his chair.
Nicholas’ claws wrapped around the stranger’s neck.
They fell to the floor together, Nicholas on top of him.
The man released a strangled noise, suppressed by the tightening of Nicholas’ fingers.
His nails pierced the skin of his neck, staining his collar red.