A Valley of Darkness

  “Patrik!” Scarlett yelped and ran to his bedside.

  I rushed over to Minah, staring at her. There was no pulse. The heart had stilled many hours earlier. I used my True Sight to scan her body, and Jax came up next to me.

  “What the hell happened here?” He was livid.

  “I don’t know, but there’s no clear cause of death. I’m looking,” I said, my teeth gritting.

  “Patrik, wake up!” Scarlett cried out, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him.

  He moaned but wasn’t much more responsive than that.

  “Snap out of it, Druid!” Hansa barked, and slapped him hard, enough for Patrik’s eyes to open wide. He sat up, breathing heavily. He blinked several times, trying to get a hold of himself, his cheek reddening.

  Scarlett placed her hand on his shoulder, her gaze darting between him and Minah.

  “Patrik, what happened?” she asked, her voice trembling.

  He stared at her for a second, visibly confused.

  “What do you mean, what happened?” he croaked, then glanced over to me, then Minah, and his face was instantly drained of color. “No… No, no, no!”

  He jumped out of bed and reached Minah. Jax and I stood on the other side of the Iman girl, and the rest of the team was gathered around the foot of her bed. The looks on their faces said it all. This was a grim predicament, to say the least.

  Our only decent witness was dead.

  “No… What… What happened?” Patrik gasped with a pained expression as he touched the girl’s cold face.

  “We were hoping you could tell us.” Hansa came to his side, frowning at Minah.

  The Iman girl seemed sad, but peaceful in death. She’d most likely died in her sleep.

  “This doesn’t make sense. She was healing! She was getting better!” Patrik growled.

  Scarlett moved over to stand next to Caia and the others, watching Patrik in agony over Minah’s lifeless body. She didn’t hide her emotions. She was in pain, watching the Druid suffer like this.

  “You were passed out,” Jax muttered, his eyes on Patrik. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  “I… I don’t know…” He breathed heavily, his gaze shifting from Minah’s face to Jax, me, then Hansa. He was alarmed and dazed. “You guys… leaving. Last night.”

  Heron wore a menacing shade of darkness on his face, a muscle twitching in his jaw.

  “I’ll get the nurses,” he said, then rushed into the other room.

  We heard his muffled voice, then watched as he came back, accompanied by two nurses. Both Exiled Maras turned white as sheets of paper at the sight of Minah. One covered her mouth to stifle a scream, and the other burst into tears. They both moved to check on the Iman girl, but Heron’s arm shot out, firmly holding them back.

  “Who was here tonight?” Jax asked, his voice cold, his glare vicious.

  The nurses trembled before him, their expressions drifting between grief and horror.

  “We… We were, but… but we were on the other side, sleeping! We left the Druid here, with her,” one of them sobbed. The other put her arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer, for comfort.

  “We… She was healing just fine,” the other nurse said. “We’d changed her bandages and applied more healing blood to her leg wounds. She was getting the color back in her cheeks… This doesn’t make sense!”

  A moment passed as Jax analyzed and processed everything in the room, including the nurses.

  “Did either of you see or hear anything, from the moment we left, until now?” he replied.

  They both shook their heads.

  “Only the door opening and your people calling out to Patrik. That is all… I swear!” the crying nurse said.

  “Okay. Get out. Now!” Jax growled.

  The Exiled Maras nodded and scuttled out of the room. I could hear them sobbing in the other hall, until they went deeper into the building.

  I shifted my focus back to Minah, while Hansa checked her arms and neck.

  “There’s still blood in her, right?” she asked, looking at me.

  “Yeah,” I replied. “I’m not done scanning her yet, but from what I could see at first glance, everything’s there. And she couldn’t have died from blood loss due to her wounds; there’s enough in her to sustain her through the rest of the healing process. This is weird…”

  “Tell me about it. No cuts… No puncture marks… Nothing,” Hansa muttered.

  Jax cursed under his breath, then moved away and started pacing the room. Patrik sat back on his bed, looking lost and downright devastated as he stared blankly at Minah.

  “I don’t know what happened,” he murmured. “I didn’t hear anything… didn’t see anything…”

  “Patrik, you probably didn’t even wake up.” Hansa tried to comfort him, turning to face him. “You were knocked out just now. Scarlett shook you and you were unresponsive. I had to slap you hard to pull you back.”

  Patrik then touched his reddish jaw, grimacing from the pain.

  “Yeah, sorry about that,” Hansa added.

  “Maybe he was mind-bent, given the resident species in this city,” Jax said, then walked over to the Druid and quickly checked his pupils. His eyes glimmered gold as he used his own mind-bending ability on Patrik. “Tell me what happened last night, Patrik. You need to tell me. You can feel it in your gut that you need to tell me.”

  Patrik blinked, his face blank as he reacted to Jax’s hypnotic suggestion.

  “I fell asleep,” he said, his voice low. “I woke up during the night. I heard a noise. I saw dark figures by Minah’s bed… I couldn’t make out what they were. Then golden eyes came at me, and I fell asleep… I dreamed of Kyana… and she became Scarlett, and I—”

  “Okay, that’s enough,” Jax snapped his fingers, slightly uncomfortable.

  But his discomfort was nothing compared to Scarlett’s. Her eyes were bulging while the rest of us stared at her with raised eyebrows.

  “This is awkward,” Heron muttered.

  “Shut up!” Scarlett shot back, and I could swear she was blushing, despite her vampiric pallor.

  “What… What happened?” Patrik pressed his fingers against his temples. “My head hurts…”

  “You were mind-bent,” Jax confirmed. “You woke up in the middle of the night. You said you saw dark figures by her bed, then golden eyes, and you blacked out.”

  “Damn it… I don’t remember!” Patrik replied, a muscle twitching in his jaw.

  “I forced it out of you. It’s the single sliver of conscious memory you had left from last night. Whoever mind-bent you wasn’t an expert,” Jax said.

  The infirmary door burst open, startling us all. I instinctively reached for my swords, my fingers gripping the sculpted handles. Emilian walked in, followed by Darius, Farrah, Rowan, and Caspian. They all seemed shocked and distraught at the sight of Minah.

  “Oh, dear,” Rowan gasped, her eyes wide as she brought her hand to her mouth.

  Caspian threw me a brief, cold glance before he stepped toward the Iman girl’s bed. I immediately pulled both swords out and pointed them at him. Heron and Jax brought their blades out as well, prompting Hansa and the other four Lords to bring their hands up in defensive gestures. Caspian stilled, his hands behind his back, perfectly calm. His glare, however, spoke volumes.

  “You’re not getting anywhere near her,” I hissed.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, Harper!” Hansa intervened, moving to stand between the tips of my blades and Caspian. “There’s no need for violence right now, as we don’t know what happened. Same goes for you, Jax, Heron… Come on!”

  I had a hard time recognizing myself. I rarely acted on impulse like this, but there was something about Caspian that brought out a side of me that I’d never nurtured. I’d lived my whole life being affectionately referred to as the Cucumber, the cool-natured one, and yet Caspian’s presence alone was enough to make me tick.

  Scarlett, Avril, Fiona, Caia, and Blaze slowly shifte
d closer to Patrik’s bed, clearing the way for us in case the Five Lords decided to fight fire with fire, though I highly doubted they would, given the alarmed looks on their faces—except Caspian, of course. He was carved from stone.

  “We were summoned by the nurses,” Emilian said. “We’re here to understand what happened, just like you are.”

  “What happened is that the Iman girl we rescued from the Valley of Screams is dead,” Jax spat, his blade aimed at the four Lords behind Caspian. Darius, Farrah, and Rowan glowered at him, but Emilian kept a straight, slightly concerned face. “Cause of death unknown. And Patrik, who was watching over her, had his memory scrubbed through mind-bending. So, yeah, we kind of know what happened!”

  He glanced at Hansa as he said that. The succubus frowned, then turned to face me.

  “We don’t know who’s involved,” she said, gritting her teeth. “This is a city filled with Maras. Technically speaking, they’re all suspects. Put your swords down, Harper.”

  “Lord Kifo was the one warning me, telling me to take my team out of Neraka,” I shot back, my eyes fixed on Caspian. “Was it because he had something to hide? I must say, Minah’s unexplained death does not make him look good.”

  “I second that,” Jax added.

  Emilian came closer, enough for the tip of Jax’s sword to touch his chest. Heron moved to his brother’s side, keeping his blade aimed at Darius, Farrah, and Rowan.

  “We know nothing about this, Jaxxon,” Emilian insisted. “By everything that I hold dear, by my daughter’s life, I swear to you… we know nothing about this!”

  “You came down here quite fast,” Heron muttered.

  “We have an alarm system, you oaf!” Farrah spat, visibly annoyed by the weapons pointed at her and her fellow Lords. “It’s connected to the infirmary, among other key locations in the city. All the nurses had to do was pull a specific lever, and we were all notified. Now, put that sword down before I impale you on it!”

  “Farrah!” Emilian growled at her. “No need for verbal aggression, either!”

  “I was only trying to examine the girl,” Caspian finally said, keeping his composure and further pissing me off. I was so angry at him, especially after what he’d said to Amalia last night. “That is all.”

  He then moved back, and I noticed the corner of his mouth move a little.

  Is he stifling a smirk?

  “Is there something that amuses you about this situation?” I asked, trying hard not to throw one of my swords at him just for kicks.

  “Not at all,” Caspian replied. “It’s just the second time you’ve pulled your swords on me in less than twenty-four hours. And believe me when I say this: I am not your enemy.”

  Hansa’s confused gaze darted between Caspian and me, until it settled on my swords.

  “This is one time I’m counting your swords out,” she said. “When was the other time, in the last twenty-four hours?”

  “It’s nothing to worry about,” Caspian cut in, staring at me, his expression firm, still unreadable, and frustrating the hell out of me. “I was in the wrong. I thoroughly deserved it, and more.”

  Was he apologizing? I suddenly felt the urge to scream. He was so annoying, shifting from jerk to gentleman with such speed and dexterity that I no longer understood what was happening. All I could do was blink a few times, then put my swords away.

  Hansa let out a sigh of relief, then scowled at Jax and Heron.

  “You two! Swords down! Now!”

  The Mara brothers grunted simultaneously and put their weapons away. Jax and Heron were more alike than I’d initially thought. They’d clearly been trained by the same master swordsman—I could tell from their grips and the smoothness of each movement, from the moment each blade was drawn to the moment it was sheathed again. Their stances were nearly identical, and their distrust of the Exiled Maras was equally rampant, nurtured by suspicion, such as their potential involvement in Minah’s death.

  “This is now a crime scene.” Jax didn’t concede. “No one is allowed to go near Minah’s body, other than members of GASP.”

  The Five Lords nodded, their eyes fixed on the Iman girl. Patrik took a deep breath, then rummaged through his supply bag, taking out several satchels with a variety of herbs and crystal powders. He used a piece of chalk to draw a series of symbols on the floor around her bed, prompting me to step away and move closer to Jax and Heron. We watched quietly as the Druid performed a spell that encased Minah in a transparent, iridescent box.

  “This is a protection and preservation spell,” Patrik said. “I’m powering it with my own energy for now, but I’ll need some from you later on, to keep it going. It preserves Minah’s body in its current state, regardless of the passage of time. The spell records everything, and it’s linked to my senses. I will know the moment anyone touches her.”

  He glanced at the Five Lords as he mentioned his knowledge of anyone touching Minah’s preservation spell. The Exiled Maras nodded, none giving away any sense of displeasure toward the Druid’s caution.

  “My Correction Officers will come down shortly,” Caspian said.

  “What for?” I asked, glaring at him.

  “For your and Minah’s protection,” he replied, his head cocked to one side.

  “We don’t need protecting,” I retorted.

  “And we don’t need any Exiled Maras near Minah, preservation spell in place or not,” Jax added.

  “Sorry to say this, Emilian, but I agree.” Hansa gave Lord Obara a semi-sympathetic look. It didn’t sit well with Jax, who scowled at the senior Mara. “We can’t have anyone from Azure Heights in the same room with Minah while we investigate.”

  Emilian opened his mouth to respond, but Caspian placed a hand on his shoulder and stopped him.

  “My Correction Officers will be stationed outside the infirmary,” he said. “No one will come in. I will also instruct the nurses to seal the door leading to the other halls, just to be safe, until you finish your investigation and tell us who the hell is killing Imen in our city.”

  “Is that necessary?” Hansa tried to act as a mediator, stuck between angry GASP agents and offended Exiled Maras. I couldn’t help but sympathize with her situation for a second, just until I caught Caspian glowering at me. I mirrored his expression, and he looked away.

  That’ll teach you…

  “I’m afraid it is,” Caspian replied. “You have your rules; we have ours. I can’t leave a crime scene unprotected. My COs will look after the infirmary, even if just from the outside.”

  “That’s fine,” Jax conceded, then nodded at the door. “Now, please excuse us. We have a lot of work to do.”

  Farrah and Rowan were the first to walk out, followed by Darius and Caspian. Emilian lingered in the doorway for a second, his gaze moving from Jax to Hansa.

  “You will keep us in the loop with your progress, I hope?” he asked.

  Hansa and Jax nodded simultaneously. Emilian sighed and walked out. Avril was quick to lock the door behind him, then turned to face us with a stunned expression.

  “What. The. Hell. Was. That?” She gawked at me, Jax, and Heron. “What the hell were you three thinking?”

  “Suspects are suspects.” I shrugged, unwilling to revisit the issue.

  “We need to keep our cool.” Hansa sided with Avril. “We can’t just wave our swords around like wildlings. We represent GASP, not some rogue tribe of lawless misfits!”

  A minute passed in silence. We heard the door leading to other parts of the infirmary get locked, followed by several knocks and thuds—something was being nailed into that door to seal it, as Caspian had promised.

  These guys move fast!

  “What now?” Heron scratched the back of his head, glancing at Jax.

  “Harper,” Jax replied, staring at Minah’s body. I instinctively straightened my back in response. “Can you do a thorough search of her body? What do you call it, a ‘deep scan’?”

  “Yeah.” I nodded, then moved closer to her b
edside.

  I could use my True Sight to do an in-depth analysis of Minah’s body, her organs, her blood vessels, and her spine. If there was anything wrong, I’d spot it with a thorough look.

  Avril came over on the other side, sniffing around Minah’s body without touching the preservation spell. I started scanning the Iman girl, looking for anything that was missing or wasn’t supposed to be there.

  Time for a GASP-style autopsy…

  Scarlett

  (Daughter of Jeramiah & Pippa)

  Patrik’s mention of dreaming about me kept replaying in the back of my head. I inadvertently visualized the scene in which Kyana, the love of his life, transformed into me. I’d gone for so long thinking he’d never look at me the way he’d looked at Kyana, only for his subconscious to bring up the fact that I was, in a way, on his mind... Me, not anyone else. It baffled me, and it took some work to convince myself to push it down and focus on it later. I had work to do.

  I helped Patrik get all the herbs and crystals he needed from his supply bag, while Jax and Hansa spread the map out on the table again, and Caia, Fiona, Blaze, and Heron kept the notebooks open and scanned their pages for key notes.

  Avril and Harper were busy with the autopsy, the former using her scent-tracking skill and the other her True Sight.

  Patrik’s jaw was clenched as he pulled some scrolls out from the bag and spread them on his bed, reading through each and setting aside the ones he needed for the city protection spell. I wanted to comfort him, to tell him it wasn’t his fault, but I knew it wouldn’t do any good. He’d watched a lot of people die during his days as a Destroyer, and he took the loss of every soul personally.

  “There’s a faint scent here… something floral,” Avril muttered, sniffing around the Iman girl’s body. “It’s fresh, too, and it’s not hers. But I can’t put my finger on what it is…”

  “It’s most likely endemic to the area,” Jax replied.

  “It could be from her killer.” Hansa frowned, looked at the map again, then at one of the notebooks. “If we get you some floral specimens, would you be able to match to what you picked up from Minah, Avril?”