Chapter 9 Archer
Chapter nine
Archer
The second we were through the shadow gate I released her, watching as she stumbled a few steps, her disorientation clear.
Shadow travel was not for the weak, and even as I stared at her, heaving for breath with her hands pressed against her temples, a part of me ached to reach for her.
To comfort her while the dizziness passed.
I didn’t understand it.
She was a witch of the Order. I should be ripping her throat out and letting Vine feast on her soul.
Instead, I kept my body turned just enough so that I could see her in my periphery, not wanting her out of my sight.
To keep her from slipping away, I assured myself.
Right. That was believable.
“Where are we?” she asked, her face pale as she stared around the darkened, sterile looking room.
The far wall was filled with a row of stainless-steel beds, each one containing a drain at one end.
The opposite wall housed over a dozen drawers, their shiny surfaces reflecting the faces of four surly demons and one confused witch back at me.
“The New York County morgue,” I muttered, moving slowly toward the rows of drawers. One by one, I read the names, pausing when I landed on the one I was looking for.
Father William Phips.
Grasping the cold steel handle, I unlatched the door and slid the drawer out, staring down at the pale, lifeless face of my friend with something akin to sadness burning in my chest.
I’d known William for over three centuries, but I hadn’t spoken to him in person for close to fifty years. Not out of any kind of malice, but simply because I’d thought I’d have time.
He was supposed to have been immortal. We were supposed to have time.
“Is that him?” came a soft whisper from beside me, and I glanced down into the wide eyes of the witch.
She crept up next to me, looking both cautious and curious, huddled as she was in her thick cloak, and once again, the need to comfort her rose within me.
She looked so fragile, so out of place, a thing out of time in this modern medical setting, and every instinct inside me was screaming that she needed my protection.
But standing next to my dead friend, I couldn’t allow myself to feel anything but rage.
“You should know,” I growled, my shadows once again creeping up her body.
This time, they ignored her wrists, bypassing her hands where they cradled a small pouch she wore across her chest. Instead, I directed them to her throat, one tendril encircling her delicate neck lightly. “After all, you killed him.”
“I did nothing of the sort!” she protested indignantly, her fingers coming up to claw at the shadow currently writhing against her skin in a panic.
Watching her, I tightened the shadow collar briefly, smirking as her eyes widened even more, then allowed it to relax again. She let out a relieved breath, but her fingers stayed curled under the shadow, as though the barrier between it and her throat meant she could stop it from happening again.
It couldn’t.
“I don’t believe you.”
She opened her mouth to protest once more, but I dismissed her with a wave of my hand. Tugged by my shadows, her body slid away from me—away from Phips—and the squeal that she released was loud in the quiet of the morgue.
Knowing she was contained for the moment, I once again stepped up to the table, resting my hand on the white sheet covering William’s chest, sorrow filling me.
The others joined me, Mal and Vine across from me, Corson at my side.
For several long moments, we said nothing, silently mourning our friend. Together.
“Your work is done,” Corson intoned, his voice low and rough. “Return to Grace.”
“We now shall stand,” the rest of us joined him, our words weaving together nearly seamlessly. “In your place.”
How many times had we said those words? How many brothers had we lost, fighting the endless battle against the darkness?
If I really thought about it, the numbers might drown me.
“How did he die?” Mal asked into the quiet of the room.
I could hear the witch behind us, still struggling against the shadow collar, but I didn’t turn to look at her, instead reaching out with my other senses.
The morgue was oppressive, the air full of chemical smells, and I lamented that I could barely find her sage and lavender scent under it all.
“He was murdered,” Vine responded stupidly, and Corson reached out and smacked him upside the head. “Ow! What the fuck, Cor?”
“We know he was murdered, you moron. Mal was asking how he was murdered?” Turning, Corson leveled a glare at the witch, and she shrank away from him. “How did you do it, witch? How did you kill a fucking Guardian of the Brotherhood?”
“For the last time, I didn’t kill him!” she rasped, and I realized that I was perhaps squeezing a tad too tightly.
Relaxing the grip my shadows had on her throat, I settled the collar more gently around her neck, leaving it in place as I drew the rest of my shadows back to me.
A crease formed between her eyebrows as she rubbed at the reddened skin along the column of her throat.
My eyes followed the path of her fingers, my mouth watering at the thought of what that delicate skin might taste like.
“I was trying to reach him, but he was already dead by the time I’d arrived. I’ve never even met the man!”
“A likely story!” Vine said, sing-songing like a detective in an old-timey movie.
“It’s the truth,” she insisted, one hand on her hip, the other stroking the pouch on her chest again. “I’m just as upset about his death as you are.”
“Why would you be sad about the death of a man you’ve never met?” Corson questioned.
“Because he was supposed to—” She stopped, her lips pressed together as she considered her words more carefully. “I just am, okay?”
She was lying. That much was obvious. But what was really surprising to me was the fact that I believed her.
Between her obvious distress over Phips’s death and the fact that she didn’t smell like the rest of the bound witches we’d been dealing with, I had to admit—albeit reluctantly—that she probably hadn’t been the one to kill the priest.
That still didn’t mean I trusted her.
“Fine,” I said, prepared to allow her to keep her secrets for the time being. “Let’s get this done and get out of here.”
Reaching into my jacket, I withdrew the jewel encrusted relic I’d pulled out of the crypt at Trinity Church. Turning it over in my hands, I inspected it again. Small and moderately heavy, it was inscribed with several different runes and sigils, most of which I recognized.
Sitting proudly in the center was the circle and flame symbol of the Umbra Fratrum. It was a symbol I was very familiar with, the same one that had been on the iron plaque that had sealed the crypt. Staring at it now, I couldn’t help but wonder what other secrets my own order was hiding from me.
I’d never doubted my brotherhood, not in all my years wandering earth. But I was now, and that made me unaccountably nervous.
“You need his blood,” the witch muttered, and I threw her a glare.
“I know how a blood lock works.”
Setting the relic down on the table next to Phips, I began to slowly draw the sheet down his chest, exposing even more of his pale skin.
“Holy Hell,” Vine muttered when the sheet reached about halfway.
“Is that a bite mark?” the witch asked, her tone horrified.
I didn’t blame her; the sight was quite gruesome. The entire right side of his torso was gone, the ribs there fractured and broken off, the skin that had encased them torn in jagged chunks.
Bending down to get a better look, I inspected the wound, noting that while the lungs were mostly still there, the heart and liver were conspicuously missing.
“It is a bite mark indeed.”
“What kind of creature would make a mark like that?” she asked, her curiosity drawing her closer to me again, bringing with her that sage smell I didn’t want to crave. “It’s....huge.”
She wasn’t wrong. The wound itself was nearly twelve inches in diameter, looking very much like a shark bite, but I knew exactly what kind of creature left a mark like that. If the teeth marks and missing liver weren’t enough, the smell of brimstone was a dead giveaway.
“A hell hound.”
From inside the pouch on the witch’s chest came a frantic squeaking, the pouch itself starting to move, and I snarled, my fingertips turning to claws again in an instinctual defensive response.
“Don’t hurt her!” the witch implored, opening the pouch and withdrawing...something. “She’s just upset is all. She doesn’t like hell hounds.”
Cupping her hands against her chest, the witch held the creature protectively, cooing to it softly as though I was a threat to it.
She wasn’t entirely wrong.
“What the fuck is that?” I asked, incredulous, as I stared at the wriggling ball of spines in her hands.
“She’s—”
“A hedgehog!” Vine shouted, darting around the table that held the body of our friend and crowding against the witch. “Aw! Look how cute. Hello, there. Hello, little one!”
The animal turned, its tiny nose moving rapidly as it smelled Vine’s extended finger, before offering up a series of clicks and then nuzzling against him.
Watching, I could see the moment the witch relaxed, a soft smile on her face.
Something inside me flared to life, wanting to tear Vine away from her, wanting to tear his throat out for daring to be the one to make her smile.
Her smiles should belong to me.
She should belong to me.
“Vine!” I snapped, halting the ridiculous display he was putting on and allowing my fingers to return to their human visage. “If you don’t mind, we have work to do.”
“But boss,” he moaned, his eyes pleading. “You know how much I like familiars! I just wanna play with her.”
I said nothing, just stared at him, wondering how I had managed to go this long without killing him.
Shoulders slumping dramatically, Vine offered one last pat to the hedgehog, then made his way back to the table while the witch replaced it back in the pouch.
Sighing, I reached for a nearby tray of medical instruments, plucking up the pair of forceps in one hand and the golden relic in the other.
The room fell silent again as I leaned over Phips’s wound, pinching a small piece of his flesh from what appeared to be his lung—or what remained of it, anyway—and bringing it out of his chest cavity.
Clenching my teeth against the ache in my heart at the grim task before me, I placed the small piece of flesh on the relic, letting it settle in the very center of the circle flame emblem.
For a moment nothing happened, and I worried that the fact that Phips was dead would mean his blood would no longer suffice. But then a series of soft clicks emanated from the inside, the thing vibrating against my palm lightly before there was a pop, and the box sprang open.
It felt as though we all collectively held our breath as I gently lifted the lid, all of us tense with trepidation, wondering what we would find inside.
I’d never personally laid eyes on the pieces of the Fallen Key, so I couldn’t be certain what one would look like, but I was nearly positive that they weren’t made of folded parchment.
Because that’s all that was inside the golden box in my palm.
One sheet of stiff paper, folded neatly, the wax seal still intact.
It sat there, innocently waiting inside the satin-lined interior, and I ground my teeth in annoyance.
The paper still looked new—at least in the grand scheme of things—clean and untouched by the elements, seeming as though it was mocking me with its simplicity.
“The fuck?” Vine muttered, and I had to agree. What the fuck, indeed.
Removing it, I slid the box back into my jacket before turning it over and frowning at the compact, precise script written on the outside.
“Who the fuck is Delilah?”