Chapter 24
Periwinkle
Sorrel peers at the mass of murk that cloaks the city in front of us, her head cocked to one side and her mouth slanted at an even sharper angle. “So we just… think happy thoughts, and the darkness goes away?”
The skepticism lacing her voice is echoed on the faces of the group of shadowkind I’ve gathered.
A couple dozen of the beings who answered Rollick’s call for help when the rift first puked shadows all over the city agreed to come with me to attempt a larger clean-up.
But that doesn’t mean they won’t question my methods.
I smile as brightly as I can in an attempt to inspire confidence. “It’s a little more complicated than that, but only for me. I do all the talking. All you need to do is keep an open, friendly sort of attitude and let my energy flow through you.”
A short, lumpy-headed figure who I’ve gathered is a toad shifter—and looks the part—scratches his head. “Is it going to hurt us?”
“I… don’t think so. It’s all good feelings.”
Mirage pipes up with a whirl of his five tails. “Like a warm hug, ever so snug! Even if it doesn’t fix the city, we’ll all feel happier.”
I appreciate his words of support, even if I’m not sure I should be making promises like that.
Fen steps up next to me with an uncharacteristically firm expression. “Peri’s already done a lot of work to clean up these shadows. We have to do whatever we can to stop the problem from spreading. I’m going to pitch in everything I can.”
Not a single drip falls from her fingers, showing just how sure she is of her convictions. The beings around us who know her from school look a little chagrinned, as if embarrassed that the naiad most of them saw as weak might be showing them up.
The imp glances around us with twitchy eyes. “What if the hunters or the other angry humans attack us again? I’m not into bondage.”
I ignore Hail’s snort and motion to the scattered buildings around us. “That’s why I picked a spot as far as possible from the camp and any other places the humans have been hanging out. They shouldn’t even realize we’ve shown up here before we’re done.”
I only have the strength to keep at it for an hour or two.
Our efforts had better not fail because I’m a weakling.
I stuff that thought down and clap my hands. “But that does mean we should get started right away! My mates will stay next to me, and the rest of you spread out nearby. You don’t need to touch each other, but keep close.”
When my men and I tackled the rogue shadowkind who was destroying the city weeks ago, we created a barrier of light around Viscera while standing several feet distant from one another.
But I don’t want to count on my energies being able to flow so easily between a whole bunch of beings I barely know.
The crowd of shadowkind gathers just a few steps from the border of the strange murkiness.
A gust of wind rattles a signpost, and a shifter on the fringes jumps out of her skin—literally.
She shrinks into a cat with fur raised all along her back and tail puffy, and has to shake herself a few times before she can return to human-like form.
“What if the humans bring chainsaws?” someone says abruptly.
My gaze twitches in the direction of the voice. “What?”
“Sometimes the mean ones chop people up with chainsaws. I saw it on TV.”
I’d like to point out that most things humans show on TV aren’t real, but considering that any support I’ve gotten from our mortal friends came from my TV appearances, I’m not sure that’s the best idea to put out there.
“I haven’t seen any chainsaws,” I say instead. “Even when they kidnapped me. I think that’s more of a small-town thing than a city thing.”
Another voice pipes up. “Yeah, in cities they don’t have as much room to swing things around. They like butcher knives there. We can dodge those.”
“But what if they’re made out of silver and iron?”
“They still have to catch us.”
“One time I saw a show where—”
Raze clears his throat with a sound like a growl. “There are no humans anywhere nearby right now. I’d smell them if there were. We need to let Peri work her powers before any of them do turn up.”
The reminder that the weaponry they’re talking about could appear if we don’t get on with things quiets the conversation, but trickles of anxiety still lace the atmosphere. I tune out the sour prickles that cross my tongue as well as I can and turn toward the city.
Despite my insistence that we don’t give up on the humans or their home, it takes longer than usual for me to dig into my reserves of compassion.
When I stare into the shifting shadows, I don’t think of figures wielding chainsaws and butcher knives…
I remember the dark gazes of the humans who tied me up and interrogated me.
The grim expression Colonel Hueber has when he talks about keeping shadowkind away.
Those people don’t stand for all humans, I remind myself. I should think about the news reporters who’ve seemed interested in my story, about the refugees who spoke up about how we’d helped them, about Gracie trekking all the way out here to show how much she still cares about me.
“Hey,” I say to the murk as if I’m talking to a being rather than a mass of shadow vomit. “I know things have been pretty chaotic around here, but we can still find a place for you. All of us can live together with peace and joy. Doesn’t that sound nice? Let’s see how you can fit in…”
I summon the vibrant blue-green light that’s shone from me before. It tickles up inside me, wavering with the splashes of anxiety that hit my senses from all around.
Yes, this situation is a little scary, but I do want to find a common ground. I want us to be able to coexist without anyone getting hurt.
Is that really so much to ask for?
The light streams out of me to the four men standing around me. I nudge it farther, toward Fen and Brine and Sorrel, toward all the other beings gathered around us, ready to embrace it and the cooperation I’m talking about.
Except most of them still aren’t in an embracing mood after all. The glow flickers as it spreads rather than beaming brighter.
My pulse hiccups. I try to push more energy out of me, but my own doubts wriggle through my focus like worms brought out by the rain. While a few streaks of the light veer toward the shadows, most of it snuffs out.
Sorrel glances down at her hands and then at the murk, her brow knitting. “That wasn’t much, was it? Maybe we should get, like, one of those big spotlights that can swing all over the place.”
I swallow thickly. “I don’t think that’ll do anything to this kind of darkness. I’m sorry. I lost my concentration. If we can all focus on the things that make us happy here in the mortal realm, that should—”
A small, slender body springs out of the shadows to crash into my legs. Falkor gazes up at me, wriggles his furry snake form, and lets out an arf that sounds unmistakably urgent.
I frown down at him. “What’s the matter, buddy?”
He gives a whine that ends in a serpentine hiss and squirms away from me—past Sorrel, who lets out a little yelp and looks around as if for a chair to jump onto. Maybe she sees him as a very large mouse.
My impression of his urgency only increases. I glance around at my men. “I think something’s wrong. We should find out what’s going on.”
It’s no good trying to clean up one disaster if an even bigger one is about to crash on our heads.
Jonah nods. “Anyone who wants to join us, jump in the van!”
While he hustles to the driver’s seat, my other mates and I dive into the back through the shadows.
Fen leaps after me, along with maybe a dozen of the other beings—including Sorrel, despite her shudder when my snake-puppy gives another arf from outside.
Thankfully we all fit fine when we stick to the shadows.
Falkor seems to have picked up on what we’re doing. He barks toward the driver’s seat from where he’s standing on the road, and Jonah gives him a wave. When our sorcerer starts the engine, the snake-puppy takes off as fast as he can slither-bound, keeping his physical form so Jonah can track him.
My self-declared pet leads us on a straight-forward route around the edge of the city, back toward the camp.
My sense of the emotions wafting from the humans there had faded away with the distance.
As we get closer, little jabs of panic and rage pierce my tongue, vinegar-sour and ghost-pepper-searing.
I materialize on the passenger seat next to Jonah. He’s used enough to shadowkind habits that he only gives a slight twitch of surprise, his hands staying steady on the wheel.
“Something’s happening at the camp,” I say, a shiver rippling through my nerves as the impressions expand. “People are really upset. I don’t know—”
We turn a corner that brings us into view of the army cabins, and my voice dies. Because now I do know, and what I know isn’t good.
Dozens of soldiers stand shoulder to shoulder at the edge of their territory, their guns booming loud enough that I can hear the shots even though we’re still half a mile distant. A few tanks are rolling over behind them.
In the first second, I can’t tell who they’re firing at. It quickly becomes clear with the blinking of bodies in and out of view.
Supernatural energy flashes in lightning bolts and blazes of fire. An eerie shriek pierces the air.
It’s another army, one of shadowkind—more beings than I can count popping into view to hurl their powers at the humans and then vanishing before the bullets can tear into them.
The bottom of my stomach drops out. “Why are we attacking them? Well, not us, but… Did Rollick decide to drive the army away?”
Jonah shakes his head, his knuckles paling where he’s gripping the steering wheel. “He wouldn’t have done something like that—at all, I don’t think, and definitely not without talking to us.”
My voice shrinks. “Maybe he was worried I’d disagree and mess up his plans.”
Jonah’s gaze flicks away from the road just long enough to hold mine for a beat.
“No, Peri. He might have been frustrated that you and he weren’t seeing eye to eye, but—this is going to screw things up for all the shadowkind here.
Make you all targets. He wouldn’t put your life in danger like that. ”
That’s true. Rollick might distrust humans to a massive degree, but only because of how they treat shadowkind. He wouldn’t screw any of us over to screw them over too.
Only one-sided screwing is acceptable.
Jonah slows the van but keeps driving closer. I squint at the beings who briefly emerge, but I don’t recognize any of them.
“The way they’re acting, being careful in their strategy rather than just barging at the soldiers—they’ve got to be higher shadowkind, right? Do you think they’re warped beings from the rift?”
Jonah’s forehead furrows. “Maybe some, but I don’t see how that many could have come through all at once or without us realizing it earlier. Have you seen any warped higher shadowkind other than Viscera?”
I shake my head. He has a point. Viscera didn’t exactly arrive quietly.
Subtlety is not a typical quality of the warped shadowkind.
Hail must have been following our conversation from the shadows.
He materializes to lean between our seats, his expression somber.
“Plenty of humans are making their own groups to harass and capture us. It’s not totally surprising that a bunch of shadowkind who don’t feel like answering to Rollick might have decided to lash out, is it?
Especially now that this rift situation is messing things up in the shadow realm too. ”
I hadn’t thought of that. “They might blame the humans here for what’s happening, just like the humans are blaming us.”
Hail nods. “It’s not as if humans haven’t given many of us plenty of reasons to dislike them before now.”
His own animosity toward humans doesn’t ring quite as sharply through his voice as it used to, but I know he still would rather stay as far away from most of them as he can get.
The rattle of gunfire penetrates the van’s walls, louder by the second. Jonah grimaces and pulls over onto the shoulder of the road. “I don’t think we should get any closer. Not in the van, anyway.”
I hug myself. “We can’t let them keep fighting, can we?”
“I don’t know if there’s anything we can do to stop them. Maybe Mirage…” Jonah glances over his shoulder as he hesitates. “But most of the soldiers will be immune to his illusions with their badges.”
I slip after him when he steps out of the van, peering toward the battle. “If I could project enough calming emotions to get all of them to settle down…”
The possibility of me ending the fighting with my power feels too huge for me to wrap my head around—so many beings both mortal and shadow, so much rage crackling through the air.
And then the idea becomes moot, because the tanks have jerked to a halt, their guns pointing toward the raging shadowkind.
A new line of humans appears amid the soldiers. Across the distance, I can’t make out more than a mumble of the syllables they holler out, but the unnerving jitter over my skin tells me it’s not words but sorcery.
The magic must be calling on the opposing beings to show themselves. The shadowkind on the attack emerge into physical form—here, there, and everywhere. Their heads whip around in confusion while their limbs jerk out defensively.
They definitely aren’t warped beings if the sorcery worked that well on them.
I only have time for that one thought to pass through my head before the tanks open fire.
Their artillery booms even louder than the chorus of rifles, with puffs of smoke around the muzzles of their guns. Explosions flare amid the shadowkind force. Bursts of essence flood the air where several beings disintegrate beyond the point of healing, just like that.
A few of the rounds hit the factory buildings at the edge of the city. One roof crumples with a thunderous crash.
I wince, anguish squeezing my heart. The humans don’t seem to care who they screw over while winning.
And the mutual screwing over is happening on an even larger scale than they probably realize. Because as I watch the flames dance amid the plumes of smoky essence, I notice something else that clenches the tension in my chest tighter.
The edges of murk around the city shiver—and creep a little forward.
At first, I think I must have imagined the effect in my horrified state. Then the tanks fire again, and I see it clearly.
One swath of thickened shadow looms closer, shifting from a porch across a lawn to the edge of the road.
The flood has never done that before, not since the original deluge. Even when more shadows belched from the rift, they only stirred up and condensed the darkness over the city rather than pushing it farther out.
My heart leaps to my throat. “Oh, no. The mess is spreading.”