Chapter 14
Rollick
From what my former employees had reported, Quinn was more used to clambering around on rooftops than mountainsides. That didn’t stop her from looking perfectly comfortable perched on the ledge with a hundred-foot drop below its lip, her feet braced against the stone surface just a few steps away from a fatal fall.
There was a stillness to her that I hadn’t often seen in mortals. I hadn’t gotten much chance to notice or appreciate it while she’d technically been my prisoner back in L.A.—she’d been too restless in captivity, like any being would be when caged. But even then I’d gradually realized she wasn’t a typical human in many other ways.
She really was lovely, poised there in the dwindling light with wisps of her pale hair floating free from the hurried braid she’d pulled the strands into. Not just in a way that called to my cock, but that made me think it really was a shame no one had tried to capture her form with paint or pencil to commit it to posterity.
Which then made me think of the dreams of her own that she’d talked about more than once now. The monuments she’d wanted to build for the rest of humankind to revel in after she was gone.
I knew that wish wasn’t any kind of self-aggrandizement on her part. Most human buildings didn’t come etched with the name of their architect. She didn’t even care about being remembered for herself, only about leaving some kind of impact—and a positive one—on the world. A meaningful trace of her existence that would give people something more than they’d had before.
How many mortals would worry about something like that when they only had a handful of years left? She could have been making as many happy memories as possible with family and friends, squeezing all the joy and pleasure she could out of the small amount of time her illness had left her with—like most humans focused on even with their full lifespan—but this was what gave her the most pleasure: making a difference. Contributing something.
It wasn’t as if I didn’t understand. Probably it niggled at me precisely because of how well I did understand, despite our situations being so very different.
“What do you think they’re even after?” she said, stirring me out of my thoughts. Her gaze was fixed in the direction of the camp.
“Our sorcerer-killing duo?” I paused, but I’d given that question a lot of thought over the past few weeks, and even now being fairly sure of what kind of beings we were dealing with, I had to admit I didn’t have much clue about their end goal. “They want to be able to manipulate other shadowkind, obviously. And from what I heard during my travels through Europe, the behemoth has some animosity toward humans.”
“So, what, they want to convince other shadowkind to make more trouble for us or something?” Quinn frowned. “Would they really need to go to all this trouble just for that goal?”
“No, probably not. And it’d be a stupid plan anyway, for exactly the reason they’re about to pay for their actions now. As soon as they started messing with mortals in any significant way, their days were numbered. They only got away with it for this long because it”s been sorcerers and I can’t think of any of us who quite mind seeing them lose their lives.”
The Highest themselves hadn’t exactly reverberated with rage when I’d mentioned the duo’s most popular current pastime. Their vast, dark shapes had simply glowered at me from within the depths of the cavernous space in which they passed their own time. But when I’d pointed out how careless the fiends and their followers were being in their kills, leaving the bodies for mortal law enforcement to find, clearly savaged in unusual ways, they’d stirred with a little more consternation.
It’d taken a fair bit more talking, emphasizing that the two ancient miscreants were taking on the powers we all hated for themselves and using them against our own kind, before one of them had said in her fathomless voice, “This cannot continue.” Then it’d only been a matter of arranging the logistics.
Quinn rubbed her mouth, still gazing pensively at the darkening landscape ahead of us. “Yeah, I guess that’s understandable.”
It wasn’t just stillness, I realized, watching her. There was an air of sadness to her that I hadn’t quite recognized in the past. A sense of loss. Over what she’d already sacrificed or what she expected she’d have to next?
Maybe a little of both.
Her phone buzzed softly in her messenger bag. Her body moved with automatic swiftness, her arm reaching to unzip one of the pockets and retrieve her pill case, her other hand grabbing her water bottle. She popped her evening pills into her mouth and swallowed them with a single gulp of water as if it were nothing.
I knew what a lie that was. If it’d been nothing, she wouldn’t have worried so much about the alarms and taking them at the exact same time. They were the only thing ensuring she kept whatever little time she did still have.
How could I say I understood her dreams and fears when I really didn’t have any idea what it was like to see the end of your life approaching like headlights speeding toward you on a freeway? My own potential death rarely even crossed my mind.
My stomach twisted with an unfamiliar sense of discomfort. Before I could dwell on it, Quinn looked over at me. “Why would they want to mess things up for humans anyway? No matter what the sorcerers think, that’s clearly not a standard attitude among shadowkind. Torrent and Lance and Crag didn’t see mortals that way. You don’t.”
“I don’t,” I agreed. “But I don’t think it’s any great mystery. There are humans who go on killing sprees, aren’t there? Animals that have a particularly aggressive streak. It happens in all species, so why not in shadowkind too? Most of us just want to continue our lives and make what we can out of them, and there are some who specifically want to make suffering for others.”
“And unfortunately when you get a psychotic higher shadowkind or two, they can do a heck of a lot more damage than a serial killer or a rabid bear,” Quinn muttered.
“Well, that’s why the Highest exert some kind of rulership over the rest of us. So those of us who want to just live our lives can continue doing so in peace.”
“Or even building something to help each other, like you have.”
There was a wistfulness in Quinn’s voice that twisted me up even more. But before I could put my finger on exactly why I was unsettled, a flare of light on one of the slopes below us caught my eyes.
“There,” I murmured, touching her arm and pointing. Another glowing spurt and another burst into being along the inner mountainside to our right, close to the ridge. Not all that near the lake. My lips tightened into a caustic smirk. “Our enemies must have been poking around on the outskirts of the camp seeing what was up rather than heading right in. The Highest’s warriors decided it was time to step in.”
Quinn leaned forward, squinting at the distant slope. Enough light now dotted the landscape there for us to make out a wide ring of figures, large and humanoid but with wings and horns and other appendages that made it clear they were much more than any mortal. Several other figures stood in the middle of the ring, but I could tell most were cringing lackeys. Only two stood tall, one even blockier-looking than Crag and the other towering but sinewy. That was all I could make out from a distance.
“What are they doing?” Quinn whispered. “They’re barely moving.”
“The warriors will interrogate them first.” I lifted my chin toward them, relief starting to spread through my chest. It was almost over. “They’ll want to be sure they’ve got the right delinquents and to give them a chance to come back to the shadow realm and face their judgment willingly. Somehow I don’t think these two are going to take that option.”
And I was looking forward to watching the Highest’s warriors crush them.
I’d hardly finished speaking when a few of the warriors leapt forward. Someone over there was bellowing loud enough that a hint of the sound reached my ears even across that huge distance, though I couldn’t pick apart any words. They charged at their captives, swords and claws slashing.
The beings I’d taken for lackeys fell left and right with plumes of essence. Two of the warriors slammed the bulky being I assumed was the behemoth into the ground. A few more sprang at the leviathan.
I almost looked away, thinking the fight was basically over. But just before I did, another distant yell rippled through the broad valley between the mountains.
One of the warriors who’d pinned down the behemoth turned and stabbed his sword into the neck of his colleague next to him.
My gut lurched. I was on my feet before I’d realized I was going to move.
No. They couldn’t—with just some sorcerer organs in their gullets—I’d specifically told the Highest to send the most powerful underlings they had working for them. How many actual sorcerers could have commanded a shadowkind that potent?
But somehow this duo had managed it, maybe working in tandem. The one warrior crumpled with the fatal injury, and the one possessed by sorcery hurtled toward those pinning the leviathan. The behemoth heaved himself upward at the same moment and charged into the fray too.
“What—what’s happening?” Quinn asked, a waver running through her words. “You were sure whoever the Highest sent would be able to deal with?—”
“I know what I said,” I cut in roughly. My heart was thudding faster than I could ever remember. If these fiends could manage to cut down a whole squad of the Highest’s top soldiers…
They were managing it. Even as denial clanged through me, the two beings who’d once been at the warriors’ mercy were carving up their opponents with the help of one—no, now two dupes who’d fallen under their sorcerous spell. Other shadowy bodies were racing in from the camp to help them as they turned the tide. Another of the warriors fell, and another?—
Quinn dashed to the edge of the ledge and crouched down there, sliding her legs over the lip. A different sort of panic jolted through me. I leapt after her. “What in the realms are you doing now?”
Her face had totally blanched, her eyes wide in the dimness. “I have to—they’re not going to make it on their own. The warriors. But maybe if I can get to them—I can try to use my sorcery on the others, force them to stop…”
She was absolutely insane. She was also already easing her way over the edge, about to slide down the nearly sheer slope to the slightly more even ground farther down.
I lunged forward and caught her arms before she could get that far. Quinn squirmed against me with a hiss of protest. “I have to—there isn’t much time?—”
“There isn’t any time,” I snarled at her, somehow furious and anguished all at once. “It’d take you at least half an hour just to clamber your way over there. They’ll have fallen ages before then. All that’ll happen is those beasts will carve you open too—or worse.”
“This was our only real chance—they’ll be distracted—let me go. I have to try. I know I can’t cast any magic at them from this far away, but if I got a little closer, maybe…”
Every particle of my being rejected that thought. I could already see them bashing open her fragile body, shattering the skull that held all those hopes and dreams.
She had such big aspirations, and she was willing to throw them away on a one-in-a-million chance. While I stood here with my millennia behind me, already knowing there was no point.
This woman deserved more than that. She deserved so much more than she’d gotten, so much more than I’d offered her since she’d come into my grasp. But I could do this one thing for her.
The resolve swept through me so abruptly and fully that it blanked every other thought from my mind. I released my demon form as I hauled Quinn up from the ledge, ignoring her protests and the smack of her limbs. Setting my hand on her forehead, I willed a rush of demonic magic into her mind to knock her into unconsciousness.
She went slack in my arms. I bit back my horror at the feel of her gone so limp and eased her over my shoulder. Then, casting one last glance at the carnage the victory I’d tried to orchestrate had turned into, I spun on my heel and stalked off to descend the mountain.