Daughter of Gods and Shadows (11 page)

Eden stared out of the window, blinking back tears. All of the people on this bus were running, just like her, hoping to find a place to hide until all of this shit blew over.

“When the Demon returns, Eden, his army will rise up and your world will be in jeopardy of falling under his rule, like our world had been,” Khale had warned. “You are the only one who can stop him. You with the power of the Omens can save the human race from annihilation.”

Is that what was happening? Annihilation? Rose and Khale expected her to stop this and to save the world, which had been turned upside down and inside out. People were dying and being resurrected into monsters. No one could fix this, especially not her.

“What's that?” someone in the back of the bus asked. “Did you see that?”

Eden pulled back her hoodie and sat up in her seat, glancing anxiously out of the windows. She felt them before she could see them. But what were they?

“What?” someone else asked.

Her heart raced, and she fought back the urge to scream, to cry. Was it another dream, a nightmare?
Wake up, Eden,
she willed herself.

“What are they doing, man?”

“Mommy?” the toddler sat up in his mother's lap and looked at her.

“Shhhhh, baby,” she said, holding on tighter to him.

“Shit!” someone shouted. “Oh shit!”

Eden looked out of the window at the back of the bus and saw a large cargo truck bearing down on them. Moments later, sound closed in on itself and time seemed to almost stand still as Eden felt her body jerk against itself and saw the chaos of other passengers floating in midair. Mouths gaped open, releasing screams into the air. Eyes bulged wide in disbelief. Glass shattered and then fell like rain inside the bus. It wasn't until her body folded and twisted over one of the seats that she realized she'd been airborne. Excruciating pain raked across her back, and loose luggage fell on top of her, pinning her in place.

The scent of smoke and gasoline filled the cabin, and as suddenly as it had begun, it ended, with broken bodies piled on top of each other. The deafening sound of metal scraping against metal and asphalt and screams blended together creating a chorus of terror. Eden smelled blood and tasted it in her mouth.

Everything stopped. She looked for the pregnant woman and her toddler. Eden slowly turned her head to where she believed the driver should be, and through blurred vision saw that the whole front windshield was missing. And then she saw them, people—at least they looked like people, but something about them was different. Their movements were sporadic and unnatural. They were raging, crawling through broken glass and peeling back the door at the front of the bus.

Sakarabru's army. The words came to her all of a sudden: The Brood.

“Noooooo!” The terror in a woman's voice made Eden's skin crawl, and two of them crept through a busted-out window and grabbed her.

Eden watched in horror as they bit into the woman and dragged her back out of window they'd come through. The woman stretched out her arm to the other passengers. “Help meeeeee!”

It didn't take long for others to come in and start to take more passengers. Eden stared frozen in her own fear and disbelief in what was happening—what was actually happening—as passenger after passenger was attacked, torn, and ripped apart by people who looked like them, but didn't—weren't—like them.

Fight!
The word kicked her hard in the stomach, nearly taking her breath away. They were killing the passengers on that bus, and if she didn't do something, they would kill her too. Eden willed her body to move but then realized that she was pinned underneath something … someone. She fought to turn over and looked into the face of the pregnant woman, lying lifeless on top of her. The baby, the little boy, was pinned underneath Eden.

Eden had to get out. She looked to the back of the bus for a way to escape, but it was blocked by the truck rammed into the rear end. Eden had no choice. There was only one way out of here, and if she wanted to live, she had no choice but to take it. She didn't remember freeing herself, but soon Eden pushed her way past bodies and debris to get to the front of that bus. They were like ants, crawling over each other to get to these people. Eden met them one by one with her fists, breaking faces; she grabbed heads and gauged out eyes.

Fight! Fight or die, Eden! Yes!

Eden was killing, but she had killed before. She climbed out of that window, stepping on these … these cannibals like they were insects, breaking them, stopping them. Eden kicked, breaking knees and forcing these
things
to the ground in agony.
Things.
They weren't human. They were animals, worse than animals. They were monsters. And they deserved to die.

Eden lost herself to the moment. She was drunk on adrenaline, and for the first time in her life, she let go and gave in to the nature of what she was, had always been. Eden was a warrior. But she wasn't fighting alone. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him. A phantom? No. She turned and saw that it was the Guardian. He picked up grown men by their necks and tossed them aside like toys. As he marched toward her, he caved in chests with his fists and twisted heads, leaving bodies with broken necks in the path to get to her. He was coming toward her. He was coming for her. Huge wings, black and wide enough to block out the sun, spread from his back as he ran straight toward Eden; she stumbled back in awe and fear.

“Tukufu,” she whispered, closing her eyes and wrapping her arms around him. But there was nothing she could do. The Guardian had her.

 

FORSAKEN

Kifo walked the streets of Raleigh, North Carolina, with the same disdain and disgust for what he had seen in Turkey, London, Somalia, Mexico. The curse had spread like fire, just like he knew it would, and the undoing of humankind had been at his hands.

The media had called it a flu. A pandemic.

In the Americas: “Tens of thousands have died.…”

In Berlin: “
Tausende sind gestorben.…
”

In Italy: “
Migliaia sono morti…”

The first so-called resurrections were deemed miracles, and the masses celebrated, doctors were baffled, and common people became overnight celebrities, with microphones shoved under their noses, and cameras in their faces asking them about their experiences.

“What's it like to be clinically dead?”

“Is there an afterlife?”

“How have you changed since you've been born again?”

In the blind excitement to proclaim these miracles, reporters had failed to see the fear and trepidation in the eyes of these miraculously resurrected people. And they certainly didn't see the hunger, a hunger that would make them monsters, an unfortunate side effect of Sakarabru's will. Kifo had warned the Demon that human bodies weren't like the Ancients he'd used to build the Brood Army on Theia. His mystics had performed the same spells on the humans, but the results had not been without consequences.

Bullets whirred past him. Chaos swirled around him. Screams. Sirens echoed through the streets. Confusion. What had happened? Miracles quickly turned into nightmares. A city oblivious to his presence pressed on to try to stop the pandemonium, but Kifo knew that they would fail. They would stop this first wave, but not the second or third or fourth.

“The Seer Larcerta said it would be you.”

Kifo recognized the sound of Khale's voice, even though she had never said two words to him. He turned slowly to face her, standing on the other side of the street. She looked ordinary, but still, he should have been afraid. She was Khale n
é
e Khale, after all, the Great Shifter and the dragon.

Kifo boldly walked toward her, stopped, leaned down until their noses almost touched, and inhaled.

“I can still smell the sulfur on your breath, Khale,” he said bravely.

“Where there is sulfur, there is still fire, Djinn child.”

He recognized a warning when he was threatened with one, and Kifo slowly backed away from her.

“You brought the Demon back,” she said, stating fact.

Kifo stood back proudly. “Yes. I brought him back.”

She looked beyond him at the houses in the neighborhood of suburbia and shook her head. “And you caused all of this.” Again, it was a statement, a declaration. “You did this to these people.” She turned her attention back to him. “To this world.”

Yes. He had.

“All to get back at me, little Djinn.”

Of course her intent was to humiliate him. Khale was understandably upset by all the recent events. Even for him, however, old wounds that should've healed long ago were reopened.

“I saw the dragon the day my people were murdered,” he said, evenly. “I watched as you flew over our colony, spitting flame out of your mouth until there was nothing left.” More than four thousand years later, the images from that day were still crystal clear to Kifo.

“And then I watched as you landed and changed back into your pretty self and walked through the ash examining the charred bodies of the mystics. They were spiritual, peaceful, and had never hurt anyone, and they had taken me in when no one else wanted me.”

Tears had the audacity to fill the Shifter's eyes. “It was war, Kifo. And for every one I killed from Sakarabru's territory, he killed ten of mine. It wasn't fair and it wasn't right, but it was war.”

“And it is again, Khale,” he said coolly.

“You could have left well enough alone, Djinn. We have all found a new home in this world. We have built our lives here. Bringing him back will destroy everything and everyone. You know this. I cannot believe that in your heart you believe that bringing him or his army back is the right thing to do.”

“I am obedient,” he blurted out, surprising even himself with those words.

Khale frowned. “But you weren't always.”

What the hell was she talking about? Of course he had always been obedient to Sakarabru. The Demon had saved Kifo from a life of desolation and starvation after Khale had destroyed everything and everyone who he had ever loved. Kifo owed him his loyalty.

“He tortured you, Kifo,” she volunteered.

Kifo couldn't believe the depths to which this liar would go to trick him. “Now is not the time for this, Khale,” he said with his own warning. “Don't you have a new Redeemer to play with?”

“He tortured you longer than most, Djinn. I don't even want to try and imagine the kinds of things that Sakarabru did to you, taking you to within an inch of your life, only to bring you back again, saying that he was saving your life, when all he was doing was manipulating you. I have seen him do this. I know what he is capable of.”

Gunshots fired in the house behind her, and Khale flinched.

“You've destroyed this world, Kifo. You've destroyed this world. There is no going back for these people. Don't you understand that? He made you do this.”

Sakarabru had saved Kifo's life. That's what he understood. And nothing this bitch said would be enough to make Kifo question his loyalty to the Demon.

This place had been his home, too. It wasn't perfect. Humans could sometimes—most times—be their own worst enemies, wallowing in their petty prejudices and selfishness. They were intolerant and ignorant, and war was nothing new to this race. Kifo had started a different kind of war, one that he knew they wouldn't be prepared for. It was the most devastating and heartbreaking thing he'd ever seen, watching entire societies fall apart over what he'd done.

“He will call to them?” she asked. Khale was referring to those who had been turned. “He will gather them and claim them as his army?”

“He's getting stronger,” Kifo said. “He'll call them when he's ready.”

She visibly swallowed. “She will be ready.”

“Your new Redeemer?” he asked smugly.

“Mkombozi reborn,” she corrected him.

The Shifter put on a great game face, but something told him that she didn't quite have the same faith in this reborn that she'd had in Mkombozi.

Khale wasn't the only one privy to this so-called prophecy. Kifo had heard his share of the rumors. He had never been one to believe in such things. Kifo had been taught that individuals were born with the gift of choice and selection, and as long as they lived, they could choose. As long as choice allowed, then it was impossible to predict an outcome.

“Didn't you kill the last Redeemer who was prophesied to save our world?” he asked sarcastically. “If prophecy holds true, won't you kill this one?”

She held his gaze with her own. “Perhaps, but not before she destroys your Demon.”

“Does this reborn Redeemer possess the Ancient's courage, Khale? Does she have the same conviction?”

Khale's stone-faced expression would've been convincing to someone else. Kifo saw right through it.

“The Demon and his Brood won't stop the bonding, Djinn.”

“Then I take it that it hasn't already occurred,” he said flippantly. “The advantage is ours, Khale.”

She nodded, “For now, but it won't always be so, Djinn.”

He watched as the Shifter changed into a small blue bird and flew away. Kifo stood there thinking about the choices he had made, which, consequently, had played well into the Ancient prophecies. He had made them of his own free will.

Bringing the Demon back certainly came with consequences. Sakarabru's ego was too big to settle for merely existing in this world. Kifo understood that by bringing him back, he would bring back the Demon's unquenchable thirst for power and rule.

Ultimately, it was Kifo's ego that had been the deciding factor in bringing Sakarabru back from the brink of destruction. It had taken four thousand years to bring Sakarabru into this world. For all those years, Sakarabru had haunted him, stalked him in his dreams, calling on the Djinn to prove his obedience in the most magnificent test of his abilities he'd ever faced in his life. He'd done it. And in the process, he'd all but destroyed an entire civilization.