Chapter 17
Periwinkle
Jonah hustles after me without hesitation, back to where I left my other mates.
We found a spot away from the soldiers, where we wouldn’t have to worry about stray bullets tearing through us.
Raze stands braced at the edge of the murky area, ready to swipe down any rampaging creatures that make a break for it.
Hail is poised in a similar stance, his hands raised and glittering with an icy sheen.
Mirage’s usually cheerful face has hardened with concentration as he attempts to lull both the shadowkind within the deluge and the humans in the camp behind us into some kind of calm.
I stop between them, my breath coming shaky. Their tension reverberates into me alongside my own—and alongside the discontented vibes churning all through the flood of darkness.
The new shadowy spew is stirring everything up again after it’d started to settle down. If we can’t soothe the atmosphere again…
I don’t want to think about what kind of messed-up meal it’ll make out of us.
The impulse that brought me racing to Jonah is still thrumming through my veins.
I close my hand tight around his and extend the other toward Mirage.
“I want us to make a circle of light like we did around Viscera. Maybe I can reassure the rift and the creatures coming out of it better if my powers have that extra oomph.”
I’m not sure if “oomph” is the correct technical term for what we’re attempting, but even thinking about combining forces with my men brings a fuller swell of love into my chest. The sensation echoes back to me from all four of my mates, melting the sharpest edges off their fears.
Jonah nods and squeezes my fingers. Mirage extends his arm toward me and to Hail at his other side. The winter fae pulls his slim frame straighter and holds his hands out at either side.
Raze completes our circle, his eyes smoldering with concern. “You don’t want to push yourself too far.”
“Don’t worry about that,” I tell him. “Just focus on how much we want to solve this problem. How much we’re hoping we can find a balance between the mortal and shadow realms and bring happiness rather than destruction for all the beings in both.”
Twinges of that hope waft through our bond. I stare up at the rippling mass of darkness and call on all the tender feelings of my own I’ve been able to turn to before.
Let’s be friends, I think at the flood of murk, the whirling bits of thicker darkness and all. There’s a place for you here. We can find it if we work together, like I’m working with my mates right now. See how easy it can be? We want to help you.
The turquoise light I’ve aimed toward the deluge before streams from the bond mark in the middle of my chest, bright enough to shine through my shirt. The matching marks glow on my men’s chests.
A current of loving light flows between us until it forms a solid circle. Jonah lets out an awed laugh.
We’ve only ever done this once before. I wasn’t totally sure it’d work—maybe he wasn’t either.
Now let’s see if I can put our giant mood ring to good use.
I train my attention on the emotions coursing through our glow—the fondness and exhilaration and longing to set things right. The awareness of those sensations quivers through every particle of my body.
Inhaling deeply, I will the light to surge out from our circle like a smaller version of the rift’s flood. Out and up and over there, in a glowing teal wave.
It washes over the road and shimmers against the murky edge of the deluge. One beam and another streaks through the darkness.
Somewhere nearby, a creature that was charging our way pauses in mid-snarl, its anger simmering down. The darker eddies that trickled this far waver and dissipate in the wake of the glow.
As I nudge the bright energies farther, the light thins. Can I spread it all the way to the thickest currents spilling from the rift before our glow vanishes completely?
I summon even more compassion from my body and channel it into my light.
No, we haven’t been able to orchestrate a merging of worlds in a matter of days, but that doesn’t mean we’ve turned our backs on the shadows. We’re right here, doing our best. Patience is a virtue and all that.
The rift should be patient with us, just like we’re being patient about the whole rampaging-creatures-and-warping-city thing.
I can’t tell how much the murk has thinned, but I have the sense that the new deluge of darkness is ebbing. The shadowy haze is chilling out. I’d offer to buy it a drink if bar-hopping was a thing huge masses of shadows did.
A smile crosses my lips. I exude another wash of light—
And a body slams into me from the side.
I tumble to the ground, my hand breaking from Jonah’s grasp. Yells careen all around us, cut through with a roar I know is Raze’s.
“Where’s the— Didn’t you have the thing?”
“Here!”
Tendrils of fabric smack into my body with a searing burn. My essence seizes with recognition.
I’m caught in one of the hunters’ nets, woven with silver and iron. Someone’s thrown it around me.
“Just take this one! The power was coming out of her.”
“Come on!”
The humans who’ve barged into our midst swarm around me. At least a few pairs of hands wrench me off the ground and shove me into the back of a van I hadn’t heard approaching.
The pain dizzies me so much my vision blurs.
“Wait!” I cry out. “What are you—”
I’m not sure if my words were even clear in my muddled state. The van’s doors clang shut, and the engine revs. The vehicle lurches forward.
Panic and anguish rush through my chest from my connection with my men. They feel… stuck, as if the people who nabbed me harmed them as well.
No! I have to get back to them—I have to make sure my mates are all right.
Another roar fades into the distance. My pulse starts to stutter. If these people drag me too far from my marked men, we’ll all be in another kind of agony. I doubt my attackers even realize that.
They also might not realize that my mates should be able to track me down by following their impressions of my emotions. They’ll come after me as soon as they can. It’ll be okay.
As long as wherever I’m being taken isn’t even worse than what’s already happened.
Are they going to throw us in cages? Bend our minds to sorcerous commands?
Why did they come after me right now? I was trying to fix the rift—I don’t even know if they ruined whatever progress the five of us managed to make together.
The fraught uncertainty overwhelms me, and my thoughts scatter again with the throbbing of pain all through my body. The net burns everywhere it touches my skin, but I can’t shed that skin and slip into the shadows while the noxious metals are grounding my essence so forcefully.
The van bumps over uneven ground. I roll from one side of the cargo area to the other, smacking against the wall. Apparently my captors are trying to turn me into tenderized shadowkind.
I grit my teeth against the pain and try to think of what to do. It’s pretty tricky when I don’t seem to be capable of doing anything at the moment.
Abruptly, the van screeches to a halt. More voices holler back and forth outside.
The usual prickling of discomfort at distance from my mates hasn’t started up. We haven’t experimented with getting farther apart since we confirmed our love for one another. Maybe our bonds have settled down with our acceptance of them?
One small plus in a big heap of minuses.
The van’s back doors swing open. I’m lying on my side partly facing them, so I have an awkward view of the several humans standing stiffly outside, staring at me as if they expect me to erupt into vengeful flames.
As far as I know, that’s more Sorsha’s area. Maybe they got the two of us confused, just looking for a shadowkind with some sort of vibrant hair?
I manage to speak, though my voice comes out reedy. “Why did you take me?”
One of the humans makes a scoffing sound. “You’re one of those monsters. You were messing around with the shadows. As if things aren’t bad enough already.”
I swallow against the pain. “I was… trying to make it better. Calm down the flood. Stop the real monsters.”
Another of my captors snorts. “Why would you want that? You’re getting what you want, aren’t you? Taking over the world?”
Taking over the world? My mind spins, and a response I haven’t totally thought through spills out. “That sounds like… too much work.”
Then I blank out completely.
I wake up sitting in a folding lawn chair with my skin no longer crisscrossed with net webbing. That should be an improvement, but a deep throbbing around my arms and legs tells me I’m not exactly home free.
Shiny cords that must be woven with silver and iron gleam around my wrists and elbows, restraining me to the chair’s arms. From the gnawing sensation across my lower legs, there are more tying my calves to the aluminum base.
The plasticky fabric against my butt and back feels awfully flimsy. I’m not sure my captors have given their current plan the most in-depth consideration. It’s not as if the chair would hold me back if I decided to throw myself at them.
I am still stuck to it and in my physical form, though. They’re just lucky I’m not the havoc-wreaking type.
My impressions of my men have dulled with the distance, but I can still tell none of them are currently overjoyed. Pain and fear trickle through me.
I need to get back to them—so they know I’m okay. So I know they’re okay.
A few humans are sitting in similar chairs across from me. When one of them gives a shout that my eyes have opened, ten more come hurrying over.
The woman in the middle chair stands up. A silver-and-iron badge glints on her shirt, and something long and sinewy glints as it streams from her hand.
It’s one of those shiny whips of light the hunters also use. These people don’t look like the hunters I’ve seen before, much more nervous and jittery rather than grim and jaded, but they’ve stocked up on all the tools of the trade.
I can’t taste the woman’s emotions while she’s wearing that protective badge, but I’m familiar enough with human interior states that I don’t buy the toughness she’s attempting to exude.
She’s hiding her nerves pretty well on the outside, but a faint tremor ripples through her voice when she speaks.
“You’re the one who made a big deal on TV about being here. You’re mixed up in this disaster the most. You’re going to tell us what you really want, or I’m going to make you.”
She lifts the whip threateningly.
What I really want is to get out of this chair, wave good-bye, and hightail it back to the city. Somehow I don’t think that’s what she means, though.
It’s not as if my broader intentions are particularly horrifying either. “I want to get all that murk off the city so the people who lived there can go home safely. And to figure out why it came out of the rift in the first place so we can make sure no one’s hurt the same way again.”
The humans all peer at me so blankly that I start to wonder if I accidentally spoke in a language they don’t know. Did the pain rewire my brain so I’m accidentally using French or Cantonese or Klingon?
The woman who’s leading the interrogation waggles the whip. “Then why were you over there sending your weird powers into it?”
Okay, so she did understand my explanation. They just don’t believe it.
I exude as much reassuring warmth as I can summon when I feel like my limbs are about to burn off, which I’ll admit isn’t a whole lot.
“My powers—which I really don’t think are all that weird; you should see what this squid shifter I met can do—seem to lighten up the darkness.
I’ve been thinning out the murk for a few days now.
When more darkness was spewing out, I got my mates to help me in the hopes that we could stop the situation from getting worse. ”
A man who’s still sitting in one of the chairs folds his arms over his chest. “Then why did the darkness stop spewing after we tackled you?”
My spirits lift. “We must have had enough of an effect before then. That’s great!”
Everyone looks taken aback by my chipper response. Did they expect me to wail and gnash my teeth?
Given that they seem to think I have an evil plan I’m hiding, possibly yes.
The woman opens her mouth, but I decide that it should be my turn to ask a question or two. That’s only fair, right?
“Where did you all come from? I haven’t seen you around the evacuee camp.”
And while they might not have the hunter vibe, they don’t look like the city’s refugees either—clothes too clean, hair too neat.
The woman grimaces. “We’re concerned citizens who arrived to see what we could do to help. If everyone stands back and lets monsters take over, we’re all screwed.”
I beam at her. “But that’s why I came too—to see how I can help! I was trying to help even before the rift vomited all its shadows over the city.”
One of the people hanging back jabs his hand toward me. “You admit it, then! You came and set off this whole mess.”
I knit my brow. “No, that’s not what I said. We just noticed something strange was going on and came to investigate. We never expected it to get this strange. That shadowy stuff hurts us too if we’re in it for too long, you know. It’s not good for any of us. So of course we all want to—”
“That’s enough!” the woman snaps, and motions for her companions to follow her as she stalks out of hearing distance.
I peer after them, my heart lurching in my chest. Is there anything I can say that they’ll believe?
What if Rollick was right about most humans after all?