Shaedes of Gray: A Shaede Assassin Novel (30 page)

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Authors: Amanda Bonilla

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BOOK: Shaedes of Gray: A Shaede Assassin Novel
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“Azriel,” I choked, as if the word burned my throat.
“Darling,” he answered.
I was in trouble. Big trouble.
And then . . . I remembered myself.
Bullshit.
He was nothing but a low-life, lying piece of shit. Savior or not, he was dangerous, a threat to my existence. I shouldn’t have been thinking about where we could run away together. But I should have been counting the steps from me to my sword. What was wrong with me? I’d succumbed to the glamour of my own kind for the last time. Azriel had tried to have me killed, or at the very least poisoned by his Lyhtan lackeys. Not to mention the fact that he’d dropped me cold, leaving me alone with nothing but lies to structure my existence. Screw him and his perfect
GQ
face.
“I’m going to slice your sorry ass into little, tiny pieces,” I snapped. I wasn’t completely confident I could kill him. I hated being on the defensive. My plan had been to ferret him out, bring the fight to his door. Start with the ball in my court. So much for planning.
Azriel threw his head back in a burst of chilly laughter. “There’s my girl,” he said. “You had me worried for a second.”
“I have nothing to say to you.” I matched his tone in temperature. “You’re a dead man.”
“I only wanted to see how you were doing.” He smiled another model-worthy smile as he walked around my couch, closer. Too close. “Not too bad, from the looks of it.” The heat from his presence bathed me in balmy air. I was suddenly overcome with a desire to reach out and touch . . .
“What brings you here?” I asked, turning my gaze from his glowing features. “Haven’t had a good ass beating in a while? Feeling suicidal? I can take care of that for you.”
“Ah, but I’d rather die by your hand than live by anyone else’s,” he said, laughing at his own lame attempt at humor. “I think you said that to me once, if I’m not mistaken.”
“I wouldn’t know,” I said, lying through my teeth. “I’ve forgotten everything about you.”
“If you say so.” He laughed and plopped down on one of my chairs like I’d invited him to settle in.
“I hear you’ve gone into the business of waging war against your own people,” I said, inching closer to the kitchen, where I’d left the katana.
“And I hear you’re shacking up with the king,” he said. “Doesn’t that make him sort of like your grandfather or something? Pretty sick, Darian.”
“Oh, I’ve already done pretty sick—about a hundred years ago.” I couldn’t let him get the upper hand. I knew too well that I could easily succumb to his charms. He’d kept me under his thumb once, but it wouldn’t happen again. “Are you disappointed your Lyhtans didn’t finish me off the other day? I owe you one, you know. Actually, if we’re getting down to business, I owe you two or three.”
“I didn’t come here tonight to fight you, Darian.” He said my name with such ease, something I couldn’t bring myself to do. His name was like poison on my lips, a curse.
“I suppose you didn’t.” I was within feet of the katana now. All I needed to do was shed my corporeal form and I’d have it in my hand. “You came here to kill me, quick and easy. But that’s not going to happen tonight or any night.”
Azriel laughed, and the sound of it tore at my heart. The pain of him leaving me was as fresh as if it had just happened.
“Are you in league with the Enphigmalé?” I asked. “Should what happened to Delilah fall on your shoulders?”
His eyes danced with mischief. “I never wanted to leave you, you know.”
It was the wrong thing to say. The anger rose in me and I’d made my decision. He was going to die—right here, right now, in my living room. I’d worry about cleaning the carpet later. “Liar. You intended to leave me just like you intended to lie to me. Why? You didn’t need to keep me in the dark. Why keep the truth of my existence from me?”
He looked sad, if only for a fleeting moment. It wasn’t enough to soften my hard-boiled soul. “My hand was forced. The less you knew about yourself, the better. And after a while, I liked it that way. You were my secret and mine alone. If my father hadn’t exiled me, we might have conquered him together. You could have ruled at my side. But it’s too late now. What’s done is done, and now that you’ve been found and others understand the importance of your existence, there’s no going back. You can’t run from Fate. I might not have you at my side, but you’ll still get me what I want.”
What a load of bullshit. I felt my body drift into shadow, and as I became solid, my hand wrapped around the grip of the ancient katana. I freed it from the scabbard with blurring speed, but before I could put the blade to good use, Azriel had passed into shadow and was gone.
“Fuck!” I screamed, slicing through the air.
Sleep would’ve been impossible after Azriel’s visit, so I strapped the katana to my back and headed out in search of trouble. The Pit seemed as good a place as any to start, and with only a few more hours to go until closing, I’d be able to pin down Levi for a minute to talk. At the very least, he may have heard a rumor or two that could come in handy. Either way, I didn’t want the night to end without a little bloodshed.
 
The club smelled like stale alcohol, cigarettes, and sweat. I wrinkled my nose in disgust and walked through a couple groups of drunken slobs, parried a few friendly hands, and kicked one brave soul in the shin after his palm made contact with my ass.
It was unusually crowded for so late in the night. The counter was strewn with discarded glasses that Levi and a cocktail waitress were hurrying to throw in the dishwasher while wiping down the bar and restocking the bowls of peanuts, popcorn, and other nasty-looking snack foods. The TV was tuned to ESPN, and a few guys were catching up on scores from throughout the night while their dates crowded together and whispered in a tight circle.
Levi steered me in the right direction. “See that girl over there?” He pointed to a petite blonde, standing alone and swaying her hips in time to the music. “She’s just what you’re looking for.”
I tipped him a hundred-dollar bill (it was worth it), and made my way through the die-hard partiers to where the girl danced by herself. She couldn’t have been taller than four-eleven, and her long blond hair looked wild and uncombed, swirling in a knotted mass to almost her knees. Her eyes were closed, and in a dreamy sort of way she rocked to and fro, her arms waving like tree branches in a strong breeze. She seemed completely oblivious to everything around her. Only the music held her attention as the haunting beats dictated the sway of her hips back and forth, back and forth, like the tide washing up on shore.
I recognized her as a Sylph, an air creature, to be more exact. She bore a striking resemblance to the woman seated next to Xander at the Summit earlier that day. Raif had pointed her out to me. The energy coming from her didn’t surround me like the bubble of pressure a Lyhtan’s presence caused. And unlike the hum that had come from the Fae, her energy was more like a soft wind caressing my face. I was quickly learning to identify these inhuman creatures by the way they felt to me, rather than the way they looked.
I cleared my throat, but I doubted she heard me above the music, so I tapped her shoulder. She opened her eyes in a languid motion, like she was just waking up. Her thin lips turned up in a Mona Lisa smile, and she continued to sway. “You’re a pretty Shaede,” she said before twirling in a circle. “Wanna dance?”
I wondered if I came across as the kind of girl who let loose on the dance floor. She looked me up and down and gave a small shrug of her tiny shoulders. “No, but I thought I’d ask anyway.”
Whoa. That’s new
. “I guess people have to be pretty careful around you, don’t they?”
“What do you mean?” Blondie replied, her eyes drifting shut again. “Because I can hear your thoughts?”
“Uh, yeah.” I watched her sway and twirl, and the strange flow of air that came off her sort of lulled me, momentarily confusing my purpose in being there. I blinked back a sudden wave of lethargy and tapped her shoulder again.
“I know you’re, um, busy dancing and all, but someone said you might have some information on where I can find the Enphigmalé.”
She twirled again before peeking out at me through one eye. “When night becomes day and day becomes night, the nine will come to claim their right. When darkest soul meets lightest love, her blood will play creator’s role, and from stone release their souls.”
I didn’t expect her to go all rhyming and poetic on me. Not to mention that none of what she said made an ounce of sense. She spun again and ignored me completely while the music absorbed her attention. “You want to elaborate on that?” I asked, grabbing her by her arms to stop her. I was getting seasick from all the rocking.
“Marked as creator, but no one’s maker. No mother, no father, they surely will take her,” Sylph Girl said.
“What are you talking about? The Enphigmalé? Whose souls?” I gave her a little shake. “Hey! Snap out of it! What the hell are you talking about?”
Her head lolled back and a deep, throaty laugh bubbled up through her mouth. It drew the attention of a small group, and one of the guys came over to see what was so funny.
“You girls want to go to a party?” he asked.
The Sylph smiled and broke free from my grasp, turning to the guy, who would’ve been better off minding his own business. She pulled him down for a kiss, which didn’t get weird until he started thrashing and fighting to get free. You wouldn’t think something that little would be so strong. But all ninety-eight-or-so pounds of her held on to that big guy, and she kept a lip-lock on him like a sailor home on leave. His efforts became weak, and then she just let him go. He fell to the floor, dead.
“That was fun,” she said with a giggle, and resumed her dance.
Levi jumped over the bar and rushed right into the action. “You’d better get out of here, Darian. This isn’t good.” He turned me around and gave me a little push. “There’s something wrong with her; she might’ve taken something. Human drugs and Sylphs don’t mix. That, or someone’s really fucked her up. She shouldn’t be doing this. Go.”
Doing what? Sucking guys dry and dropping ’em dead on the floor?
I didn’t get the chance to ask my question, though. Levi gave me a harder push this time, and I moved to the darkest corner I could find, passing into shadow before the bar flooded with a stream of Sylphs, armed and ready for a fight.
I didn’t think my presence would make anybody feel at ease, so I watched from the shadows. One of them pulled Levi aside, and a discussion ensued that I couldn’t hear over the music. While they spoke, the others tried to break Little Miss Dance Machine out of her weird groove. She smiled sweetly and ignored them for the most part, stepping over the body of the guy she’d just killed like he was an obstacle on a hopscotch court. Levi tried his best to evacuate the bar of its human occupants while the Sylphs worked on restraining the girl, whose dancing had increased to a frenzied tempo.
Dancing turned to spinning, and spinning to jumping. The jumping quickly changed to trembling, and the girl shook from head to toe before freezing in her tracks. She bent her head low before a scream broke loose from her chest. Glasses shattered, and the few humans who remained fell to the floor, writhing with hands clutched over their ears. Levi ran for the door but didn’t make it before he collapsed, one hand just over the threshold. Still, the girl screamed.
The piercing sound wasn’t without its effect on the nonhuman occupants of the club. Sylphs dropped like flies, grabbing their heads between their hands and calling out for the girl to stop. The sound magnified in my own ears; I didn’t think I’d be able to take much more before my head exploded. It was as if the howling wind itself blew inside my brain. A few of the humans closest to the screaming girl had begun to bleed from their ears, and I made a decision. It might have been rash, but I’m a woman of action.
With each step closer, the force of her scream seemed to blow me back like a strong gust of wind, and I had to fight to gain ground. The katana was firm in my grasp. I made my way to the girl, who continued to scream, her eyes rolled back into her head. I looked at her face for only a moment, shuddering at the awful sight of those blank white eyes and gaping mouth. I pulled back and with a scream of my own, ran the blade through her chest. The terrible screaming ceased, replaced with an odd and ugly gurgle as blood welled up in her lungs and throat. She grasped at my arm, blood trickling from her mouth.
“You are marked,” she said. “They’re coming for you.”
The blade resisted as the suction from her body held on, but I pulled it free and she tumbled to the floor, her eyes staring at nothing, her last life breath trickling from her chest in a wheeze.
A woman screamed, and the people who had fallen scurried about like frightened mice. Levi looked okay as well, helping the others out the door and cautioning against saying the wrong thing to the wrong person. Gang wars, he’d informed them. The Sylphs stood one by one and circled around the dead girl, their heads bending collectively in a solemn show of grief. The entire scene seemed surreal to me, too strange to be connected to the reality I’d known. But it was, and apparently I’d become a marked woman.
Just like I’d wanted, the night had ended in bloodshed.

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