Chapter Seven
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XANTHIA HAD BEEN PRACTICING with her abilities ever since she’d set up her equipment in their stone base.
Their mates no longer set off the alarms when they patrolled at night.
All of the cameras now recognized everyone in their family.
She’d given the cameras magical orders in Manhattan and the other boroughs to do her bidding as well.
Each morning, she checked the footage that had been captured while the other females made breakfast.
Sitting down on her comfortable office chair and dressed in a colorful outfit that didn’t match, Xan opened the file she’d named ‘Rahab’.
Dozens of videos had been recorded. “Someone was busy last night,” she said, then covered her yawn with her hand.
Semiaza had woken her a couple of times for nookie, so she hadn’t gotten as much sleep as she liked.
“It was totally worth it, though,” she murmured with a smirk.
She watched the silent footage of the commander of the evil aliens going on yet another rampage. Her contentment only lasted for a couple of minutes before vanishing completely. “There goes my appetite,” Xanthia murmured.
Semi sensed her unease and abandoned Arkas during their training session. “What’s wrong, babe?” he asked, heading to the great room to take a seat next to her.
“Rahab lost his shiz again last night,” his mate said quietly. “It’s bad.”
“How bad?” Amaros asked as he strode into the great room. It wasn’t like Semiaza to stop training and leave the room without an explanation.
“It’s worse than anything we’ve seen before,” the cambion said grimly. She replayed the video of the first slaughter the CCTV cameras had captured.
Everyone was drawn to the great room by the sheer tension they could all feel. “I don’t want you to see this, Grace,” Amaros said as the teen followed the other females inside.
Zoe had read Amaros’ thoughts and decided to postpone breakfast, since they’d barely started getting it ready. She leaned against her knight as Grace picked Angel up and hurried out of the room.
Crowding around the computer screen, they watched the rampage from start to finish as Xan played the videos in order. She fast-forwarded through most of it to spare them all the grisly details.
“It’s good that you worked out how to switch the red lights off when you took control of all of the cameras,” Jaq said. “Rahab has no idea we just witnessed every depraved act he just performed.”
“Speaking of depraved,” Semi said, but his tone was grave rather than amused. “Wait until you see the last video.” He’d scanned his mate’s mind and knew what she’d seen.
At their commander’s nod, Xanthia played the final footage a camera had caught. They watched in silent horror as Rahab caught a fleeing young blonde woman. Wynter had to look away when the red-eyed animal began assaulting his victim.
“She died before he even started to have sex with her,” Bria said, feeling sick to her stomach. She kept the door in her mind shut so she couldn’t feel their emotions. It would be too overwhelming since they all shared her disgust and horror.
“That’s the sickest thing I’ve ever seen any of our enemies do,” Kochab said when the video ended. Qi turned her head and pressed her cheek against his, seeking comfort. He held her tightly, knowing she wished she could have saved the poor girl.
“He’s totally lost it now,” Vic declared, sounding as shaken as they all felt.
“Phul looked terrified of him,” Cam said, arm around his female’s shoulders tightening to hold her closer to his side.
“He should be,” Ezequiel muttered. “Rahab turned as feral as Lachial’s offspring.”
“Speaking of Lachial’s spawn,” Xan said and opened another file named ‘Jazmine’. “Guess who was watching Rahab at the beginning of his latest murder spree?”
This time, there was only one new video in the file. They saw the shadow wielder climbing the fire escape of a building near where Rahab had killed the first group of militants. The next footage was of her climbing back down and fleeing from the area.
“How the hell did you program the cameras to film specific people, girl?” Tor asked, shaking her head in bafflement.
“I could explain it to you, but you just wouldn’t get it,” Xan said. This time, no one laughed at her ongoing joke. They were all still too sickened by what they’d just witnessed.
Jazmine had an uncanny knack of avoiding the cameras she had no way of knowing were watching her when she went out at night.
Shadows hid her from view most of the time and she was never gone for long.
They’d seen footage of her returning home moments before Lachial arrived to check up on her dozens of times by now.
“Queegly is on his way here,” Amaros said, picking up on the human hurrying towards them. Ramiel teleported to the lake, then returned with the Mad Prophet a moment later.
“Are you okay, Queeg?” Qiana asked, seeing how pale the Texan’s face was.
“Not really,” the oracle said as he took his cowboy hat off. He normally hung it on a hook in the hallway near the back door, but hadn’t been given the chance to this time. “I saw a vision of what Rahab got up to while I was sleeping,” he said with a grimace. “Was it as bad as it looked?”
“It was worse,” Zo said morosely. Little Arak and Nova were asleep in their cribs. It was a wonder they’d slept through their parents’ unease. “My father has completely lost his mind,” their matriarch said.
“He managed to regather his wits when it was all over,” Caterina said as Ram slid his arm around her again. She put her hand on his chest, glad her mate was with her again after retrieving the Mad Prophet.
“I don’t want anyone to tell GG or Dalton about this,” Wynter requested. Everyone agreed, knowing how disturbed the couple would be. It was obvious Rahab was obsessed with GG. He was never going to let go of his grudge with her.
“Where’s the littlest cambion?” Queegly asked, peering around and not seeing Grace anywhere.
“I didn’t want her to see the footage,” Amaros said. “She went to her room,” he explained.
“She’ll probably want to see the next video Xanthia is about to open,” Queeg predicted.
“I’ll get her,” Cam offered, then teleported to the south wing. He returned with Grace and Angel a few seconds later.
“I could have walked,” Grace said with an eyeroll. Her favorite knight held her in his arms like she was a baby and reluctantly put her down.
Angel seemed to know this wasn’t a good time to scream for food as she draped herself over the teen’s shoulder.
“Here we go,” Xanthia said, opening a file with Phul’s name on it. Vic’s sire stood at the beginning of a cul-de-sac with sixteen of his colleagues.
“That’s Nazab!” Braqel exclaimed when they saw a hulking man wearing only a towel. He stood at the far end of the cul-de-sac with a female in his arms. Xan paused the video so they could study the couple.
“He looks big,” Ree mused, comparing the newest knight to her mate.
“Nazab’s an inch taller than Ezequiel,” Urzra said. “But he’s not the tallest brother in our squad.”
“Who’s the tallest?” Grace asked curiously.
“You’ll find out when the rest of our squad arrives,” Urz teased her and she rolled her eyes.
“I didn’t receive a vision that a new knight had arrived last night,” Zoe said.
“Neither did I until I was on my way here, mama bear,” her fellow mystic told her. He knew Zoe felt like she’d been left out every time his visions gave him more detail than she received.
“I fell asleep while reading and missed his comet arriving,” Grace said with a scowl.
“He’s already met his mate,” Sinai said. “It’s a good sign that he’s already so protective of her.”
“Is she hurt?” Caterina asked in concern. Nazab was holding the female and they were facing a bunch of soldiers. Phul was among them, which was why this footage had been captured on camera.
“Let’s watch and see what happens,” Xanthia said, then clicked the play button.
“Holy crap!” Vic exclaimed when they watched the short video. “Did you see how fast he moved?”
“He might be just as fast as Grace,” Jacquin said.
“Nah,” the kid said dismissively. “I bet you wouldn’t even see me move at all if Xan filmed me in action.”
“We’re totally going to test that theory,” the electronics wizard said.
“What talent does the cambion have?” Queegly asked.
“I think she’s able to steal energy,” Amaros said. “But instead of siphoning his power to weaken our brother, she gave him a boost.”
“Ugh, not a stealer,” Ark said with a shudder. “I once saw a cambion leech three humans to death before I cut him down,” he said.
“I thought most cambions can’t use their power until they reach their teens,” Oaklie said with a frown.
“He was a teenager,” her mate replied. “That war dragged on for longer than usual.”
“We learned about most of the talents the cambions possess during that war,” Amaros said. “Our enemies spawned dozens of younglings during the fifteen years we battled each other.”
“That was the time Zee saved our boss from cambions rather than from their sires,” Ramiel recalled with a grin. “Do you remember what happened to him?”
“I remember,” Eze said, also grinning at the memory.
“Fill us in,” Cat said, always ready to hear a funny story.
“Amaros was fighting some Soldiers of Chaos and didn’t realize they were leading him into a trap,” Ram said.
“Ziegel saw three cambions lying in wait and charged at them just before our boss could be ambushed. He managed to kill two of them, but the final one struck before he could chop the kid’s head off. ”
“What talent did the cambion have?” Vic asked.
“She was a lightning wielder,” Eze said before Ramiel could respond. “She hit Zee with so many volts that he was nothing but bones and ash by the time she was done.”
Most of them snickered, except for Grace. The teen’s green eyes narrowed, then she turned on her heel. “I’m going to get breakfast started,” she said, then flounced off to the kitchen.
Queegly was the only other person who hadn’t laughed at Ziegel’s expense. Like the youngest cambion in their base, he felt the knight was worthy of respect rather than ridicule.