Darkness Possessed (Order of the Blade) (6 page)

Zach could still remember that moment when Ryland had finally found the woman he'd been hunting, that moment when electricity had flooded the air. He'd
known
there was something going on with her. He should have taken her out right then, but no, he'd become complacent, accepting the modern way of thinking, forgetting the true danger of the
sheva.
And now Thano was going to die because of it.

"No," Rohan said, "there was no
sheva
for Trevor. He was on a mission for me, and he went rogue. I haven't been able to bring him back."

"Really?" That caught Zach's attention for a moment. It was rare for a Calydon to go rogue on his own. Not unheard of, but rare. Not that it excused Rohan's treatment of him. "So you strung him up and cut off his hands? Because that certainly seems like the kind of thing a good leader would do."

"His hands are not cut off," Rohan snapped. "They have been rendered useless. It was the only choice I had to keep him from trying to kill us, and forcing me to make the choice I don't want to make." The steely edge of Rohan's voice made Zach snarl. His voice was cold, showing no compassion or regret for what he had done to the man who worked for him. The bastard was like pure ice.

And what did he mean, Trevor's hands weren't cut off? Zach narrowed his eyes, moving closer to the imprisoned warrior. As he neared, he saw a black outline where his hands should be. Another step and he could finally see that his hands were actually still attached to his wrists. They were encased in black webbing that seemed to undulate as it crawled over his flesh. He'd never seen anything like it before. "What the hell is that?"

"He can't call out his weapon if he can't hold it," Rohan said. "But in a few days, the webbing will become a part of him. It will consume his hands and begin to move down his body. Eventually, it will overtake him completely. At that time, I will either have to let him die, or free him to become a rogue that I will be forced to kill."

Zach swore under his breath, his skin crawling at the fate of the warrior before him. "Is that what you plan to do with Thano? Because there's no way I'll let you do it."

"Thano is sufficiently unconscious. As long as he stays that way, I will not have to act." Anger suddenly seemed to course through Rohan, and the already heavy air thickened. "This is not how it should be, Zachary. Our warriors should not be held hostage by an ancient demon curse to go rogue. These are good men, honorable soldiers who do not deserve this fate."

Zach didn't buy into the outrage. He knew Rohan was a man who would slaughter an innocent to further his own agenda. No one and nothing was allowed to stand in the way of Rohan's mission, which had once been to protect the earth realm from the demon beasts that snuck out of the nether-realm to prey upon the innocent. Who knew what his mission was now, but it certainly wasn't about the wellbeing of the poor bastard who was strung up. Rohan was a man without mercy, every single time.

 "Even if Thano wakes up and attacks everyone," Zach said quietly, venom lacing his voice, "if you so much as breathe on him, I will hunt you down and destroy you and everything that matters to you. And you know I can do it."

Rohan didn't know that the weapon Zach had bested him with so long ago was no longer accessible to him, and Zach wasn't about to tell him that the kid who had once held back an epic volcano of fire by erecting a fire wall could no longer even toast a damned marshmallow on his palm.

The cloaked warrior went still, perhaps remembering the time Zach had brought him to his knees so long ago with an array of well-placed fireballs. "I will do whatever is necessary to protect my team," Rohan said. "Your Thano will not be permitted to harm anyone."

Zach walked up to him, striding evenly across the clearing until he was standing in front of the unconscious warrior that Rohan claimed to be protecting. "What the fuck are you playing at here, Rohan? You bring me in here to show me one of your own warriors who has gone rogue. You can't heal him. All you can do is string him up like a monster, and yet you brought Thano here under the pretense that you could save him from being rogue. You lie. You can't save him, can you?"

"No. I can't save Trevor from his rogue state." Rohan's voice was bitter, so bitter that it was almost convincing.
Almost.
"You, however, can save him."

"Me?" Zach snorted in disgust. "You've got some balls if you think that I'm going to help your man when my teammate is almost dead out there. You lost the chance for my loyalty a long time ago." He snarled at Rohan. "I'm leaving, and don't bother trying to stop me. We both know you can't."

Again, a total lie, but Rohan didn't know that.

"No. You will not leave without helping Trevor."

"I'm here for Thano," Zach snapped. "Nothing else." Inadvertently sliding one last regretful look over the chained up warrior, wishing he was at liberty to help the poor bastard, Zach turned on his heel and strode back across the blue-lit area toward the place he'd entered. A part of him felt like he was betraying his own kind by not helping Rohan's warrior, but at the same time, he'd taken an oath to the Order of the Blade, and to Thano. Nothing trumped that oath.
Nothing.

Rohan's voice stopped him. "The same thing will save Thano and Trevor." The words were heavy with meaning and intent. "If you save Trevor, you will also save your man."

Zach stopped in his tracks, inches from the edge of the darkness.

Son of a bitch.

Now he got it. Now he got it all.

Rohan needed his help to save his teammate. Any good leader knew that his value was only as strong as the men who worked beneath him. Nothing was more important to Rohan than his mission, so he would be relentless to protect his team, which meant he would be relentless in forcing Zach to help him.

Resentment coiled inside him, and he fisted his sai as he turned back. He opened his mouth to tell Rohan to go to hell, then his gaze flicked involuntary back to the dangling Trevor. He looked almost dead now, limp, like he was a meat carcass that had been strung up for carving. Was that Thano's fate, too? The handful of Calydons Zach knew who had come back from the edge of going rogue had been brought back by the women they loved, reclaimed by sanity before they had truly gone rogue.

Thano was completely rogue, and he had no woman to save him. There was no out for him. No way home.

What if Rohan was right? What if he could save Thano? If Rohan really believed this task would save Trevor from the hell of being rogue, and Zach sensed that Rohan did, then he wasn't lying when he said it would save Thano as well.

Zach ground his jaw, looking over his shoulder toward where he'd left Thano and Apollo. He couldn't see them, but he knew they were there, waiting for him to work a miracle and save the day.

He knew then that he had no choice. If Rohan believed Zach could save Thano and Trevor, then there was a very real possibility he might be able to do it. Zach couldn't walk away from even an infinitesimal chance of saving his teammate. Swearing, he lowered his sai and faced the man he'd never thought he would trust again. "Okay then. Tell me what you want me to do."

Rohan smiled, a smug smile that settled in Zach's mind like a thorn. "You have chosen well, apprentice. We have much to prepare, and then we will talk."

"Apprentice?" Zach narrowed his eyes as he shored up his mental shields. This was one warrior he wasn't going to let into his head. "I was never Dante's apprentice, and I sure as hell am no one's apprentice now. Give me the details. That's all I want from you."

"No. You were not Dante's apprentice," Rohan agreed. "You are mine, and you always have been."

Her street seemed darker than it had been the last time she walked down it.

Rhiannon realized it had been a mistake to stay at the office until after midnight. She, a girl who had once thrived in the darkness, now couldn't help but look over her shoulder as she hurried down the sidewalk. She froze suddenly when she thought she saw something move in the shadowy doorway across the street. She stared at it, her heart pounding, waiting to see if anything moved.

Nothing did.

She started walking again, then whipped around, and looked at the doorway again, trying to catch someone who might have moved when she'd stopped looking. Again, she thought she saw a whisper of movement, like the slipping of a wraith into a crevice, but then there was nothing. She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry.

It was faintly windy, and a crumpled paper towel tumbled down the street, bouncing around as if invisible fingers were flicking it along. A newspaper flapped against the street post, trapped by the metal base. A hissing sound caught her attention, and she looked up just as something black streaked past, above her head. A bird? A bat? Or something that didn't belong in the city?

Her skin prickled in fear, and she looked back at the doorway. Nothing moved this time. Nothing at all. Just a shadow —

Something moved to her left, and she spun around, searching the tiny fenced yards of the brownstones that flanked her street. A squirrel sprang out of the bushes and bolted across the street, moving fast, too fast. Since when did squirrels come out at night?

No. She needed to chill. There was nothing out in the street tonight. It had been only five hours since her appearance on the balcony. Not enough time for word to get out. Not enough time for anyone to find her. She was being ridiculous, letting old fears rule her.

God, she'd forgotten what it felt like to feel so jittery. She hated that José still had that kind of power over her, even though she was thousands of miles away and he was dead. But even as she thought it, a flicker of worry settled in her gut. Was he dead? Truly? He had to be.

But she didn't know for sure.

She forced herself to turn away and start walking down the street again, trying to stay calm. But she couldn't keep herself from walking quickly, and she couldn't keep herself from looking into every shadow, and jumping each time one seemed to move. The clouds were heavy across the moon, making the shadows drift and dance. Once, she had loved the shadows. They had provided cover for her. Now all she could think was that they provided cover for something else. For someone else. For the nightmare that had never left her.

As she hurried down the quiet street, she slipped her hand into her bag and wrapped her fingers around the hilt of her dagger. She couldn't exactly run around holding it ready in the streets of Boston, but she would be prepared if she needed it.

She covered the last two blocks to her house at a run. Each time she looked back, shadows moved. Trash whipped past her, driven by the wind. A soda can banged against her ankle, making her jump. Even as she chastised herself that her fear was groundless, she vaulted up the six stairs to her building in one leap, no longer calm enough to hide the athleticism that an ordinary human should never have.

She jammed her key into the lock on the front door and slipped inside. The light in the entryway was out, casting an eerie dark glow around the foyer. She swallowed, knowing that in the six months she'd been here, no light had ever been out. She'd chosen to live in this building because the man in charge of maintenance lived on site, and he was fanatical about keeping it up.

And now the light was out.

Her heart pounding, she raced up the stairs to her third floor apartment. More lights were out in the hallway, and the stairs creaked under her feet. Had they always made so much noise? She'd never noticed it.

No lights shined under the doors of her neighbors. They were all asleep. She felt completely alone, even in this building full of people. She reached her apartment door and slipped her key inside the lock. She turned it but when she went to grasp the doorknob, the metal was cold. It felt as cold as if it had been outside in a cold Boston winter, not inside in a stuffy old brownstone.

She jumped, even as she forced herself to smile. Because it was not cold that came with her nightmares. It was heat. A cold doorknob should make her feel better, not worse. But right now everything felt off, and everything that wasn't as it should be felt dangerous.

She hurried into her studio apartment, and all the lights were blazing, as they always were. Every closet door was open, every cabinet was open, and she could see under her bed even from the front door. There wasn't a place that anyone could hide that she wouldn't see them from the entrance to her apartment, giving her time to flee. No one was hiding in her home.

Satisfied that her apartment, at least, was still safe, she kicked the door shut behind her and threw the six locks closed. She dropped her bag on the floor by the front door and sprinted across the studio. Ten minutes, she told herself. She would give herself ten minutes to gather all she could and then be out the door.

But as she grabbed the duffel bag from under her bed and began to shove her meager belongings into it, a sense of sadness settled in her heart. She didn't want to leave this time. She'd felt like it had been long enough that it would be safe to stay here. She realized that she'd actually let herself believe that she wouldn't have to run again. She had begun to think of it as her home. A home that was safe, where she could sleep soundly and not be terrified of what she would find had been done to her when she woke up. A place where she could eat when she wanted to, sleep when she wanted to, choose who touched her, and who she touched. A place where she belonged.

All that was gone, all because she'd lost her cool and gone after a bastard tonight. It was her fault. She'd been stupid.

Seven minutes later, she was packed. She was just grabbing her car keys when she heard something rattle against her window. She whirled around, facing the glass panes as she whipped her dagger out. After a long, terrifying moment with her pulse pounding in her ears, she realized rain was battering against the glass, a gentle pitter-patter that reminded her of home.