You must stop her. Turn her in. Do the right thing.
It’s the Eve before your Culling, and I just want you to know how proud I am to have been your mother. You’re my reason for being, Faye. You’ve been the light of my life, and I love you very much. Please find it in your heart to forgive me.
Love,
Mom
I can hardly speak. No matter how many times I swallow, the ever-growing lump in my throat won’t disappear. It’s burning, trying to sear its way through my skin until I have no choice but to let out the tears I’m so desperately trying to keep in.
Jaxen lays his hand on my shoulder, and I almost break in two.
“Vengeance isn’t real, Faye. You know that, right?” Weldon says carefully, tenderly.
I look up at him, shaking my head in confusion.
“It won’t undo what’s been done. It won’t fill the hole. It’s a pipe dream that those who have been scorned waste away on.”
I don’t take in his words. I can’t. “It has an address on the bottom of the page,” I force out, my voice embarrassingly shaky. “That’s where the operation is. That’s where we’ll find Clara.”
He sighs heavily. “What is it?”
“1010 Dockside Way.”
“I know that address,” Weldon says. He rubs his chin in thought. Leans back into the couch. A shade of color leeches from his face. “That’s the dockside where Bael’s demons hang. Darkyns too.” Pulling in a breath, he sits up straight with his hands cupping his thighs. “All right then.” He stands up. “Let’s go.”
I close the Grimoire, saying a quick spell to send it back to my room, then make my way over to Jaxen.
“Wait a minute,” Jaxen says, “we can’t just go barging in, Weldon. We don’t have enough manpower. Something’s bound to go wrong.”
Weldon walks over to Jaxen, flashes his impish smile, and then pulls us through a shadow.
“WHAT THE HELL!” JAXEN SAYS on a heightened whisper the moment we step out.
“Shhh!” Weldon says, his brow creased. “You’ll give us away.”
We’re standing on the edge of a dock bordering the Atlantic Ocean. An icy gust of wind cuts like daggers across my face, carrying the scent of salt. A six-story, old brick building is in front of us—a warehouse wrapped in dark magic.
“That wouldn’t be a possibility had you not brought us here,” Jaxen growls out, pulling me closer to him. His brow line creates a flat line across his forehead as he quickly scans the area for trouble the way any well-trained Hunter would. “This place is crawling with demons and Darkyns,” he says under his breath. There’s no mistaking the anger—the betrayal—in his words.
“Oh, quit whining. We’re not going inside or anything. I figured we could snoop around and see if this is a lead worth chasing.” He doesn’t wait for Jaxen to argue back. Instead, he grabs my hand and pulls me out of Jaxen’s clutches. “Coddling never got anyone anywhere.”
I glance back at Jaxen as he storms after us, his face pressed in anger. Weldon walks us over to a large shipping crate and peers around the corner. He takes a step, but before he can pull me around, Jaxen grabs him by the collar of his jacket and yanks him back, lifting him up against the crate.
“Are you not paying attention?” he yells on a whisper. “There are two demons coming this way!”
Weldon’s smile is unmistakable, even in the darkness of night. “She’s my partner, Jaxen. I want her safety just as much as you do, but unlike you, what’s between my legs isn’t involved. I’m sorry, old friend, but you’re just going to have to trust me on this one.”
He presses his fingers to his lips and whistles. Jaxen’s eyes grow wide as Weldon’s shift to a shimmery, golden liquid color. His head drops low. Shifts to the side at an uncomfortable angle. Every muscle in his body fills out a little thicker. His brow line shadows over his eyes.
Jaxen drops Weldon and stumbles back a step. “Weldon, no…”
Weldon looks over at me and I gasp, my hand flying up to my mouth. His charming, handsome features have disappeared—transformed into something menacing. The lines of his face are sharper, hollower. The circles under his eyes darken to a deep violet color against the paleness of his skin.
He’s tapped into his demon side.
“We have to be able to fight together, Jaxen.” His voice doesn’t sound like Weldon. It’s deeper, darker, carrying an edge of sorrow only those casted aside, left to rot in the gutter, could recognize. “I can’t ask her to not be scared of herself. I can’t cower behind her skirts while she does all the work. I made her a promise, and I intend to keep it. Now, trust her. Trust me.”
Jaxen grabs my hand and pulls me behind him. “When this is over, I swear…”
I jump when a foghorn sounds behind us from a boat going under the Brooklyn Bridge. The Hunter in me is on high alert. My muscles suck up every inch of adrenaline they can as one steady thought tries to blow away the cobwebs covering my common sense.
Remain calm. Remain collected. Remain alert.
I’m trying so desperately to be brave, but my hands are shaking when I pull out my father’s flux, and I’m scared I might drop it. I’m scared I might forget its purpose. I’m scared out of my mind because I know whatever Weldon has in store is nothing I’ve ever encountered.
And I don’t want to fail. Especially not in front of them.
Two demons appear before us, their red eyes glowing like hot embers. I think I might be having a heart attack, but there’s no going back now. Pressing my eyes shut, I inhale a slow, steady, calming breath, trying to collect myself. When I open them, I open them with a purpose.
I will not fail.
Jaxen and Weldon form a barrier between the demons and me. Weldon snorts a laugh, calling the attention to himself. “That’s all you’ve got? Two? You might want to bring a few more men.”
The demons look to each other, questioning Weldon’s motives.
“What the hell are you doing?” Jaxen mutters out the corner of his mouth.
“Go with it,” Weldon says back, though he doesn’t sound completely sure.
“Who’s behind you? I smell something,” the demon on the left says. It’s a very tall female with dark brown hair and the thickness of a bodybuilder.
“Who, her?” Weldon asks, looking over his shoulder back at me. He plants a silly grin on his face and turns back to the demon. “She’s just some silly girl we picked up who claims she can like suck the soul out of anything. Crazy, right?” he says with a halfhearted shrug.
The demon on the right, a very large male, scratches his head. Looks to the female demon, whose eyes are fixed on me. It’s clear there’s more going on inside her mind than in her partner’s.
“I’ve smelled her before. I know that scent. She’s the—”
Jaxen pulls a flux from under his jacket, throwing it straight at the stigma on her stomach, hidden beneath her shirt. She disappears into ash. The other demon lunges for Jaxen, his ungodly growl ripping through the night. Weldon jumps back as Jaxen is slammed into the ground. He does nothing but watch. Wait.
I’m frozen in place, unsure of what to do. I know that Jaxen’s entirely capable, but I also know that once a demon dies, all the rest know through some kind of internal telepathy thing.
Which means we need to leave.
Jaxen rolls and reaches for another flux, but the demon grabs his hands, pins them down, and then head-punches him. His head bounces off the concrete.
“Jaxen!” I cry out. “Do something!” I say, looking to Weldon.
He holds his hands up in surrender, his eyes lacking remorse. “You do something.”
I glare at him, wishing him dead on spot. The demon reaches behind him for something, and Jaxen takes it as an opportunity to elbow him in the side of the head. The demon lands on his back as Jaxen rolls and brings his fist down against the demon’s face.
The hair on my arm begins to rise. I look up. Open my senses. Four more demons are rushing toward us, along with a D
arkyn. “Weldon,” I plead, “please. I swear I’ll try harder. We have to get out of here. You’re going to get us all killed!”
“No,” he says, leaning back against the crate, his eyes on Jaxen scrapping with the demon. “You’re going to. Everything you need is inside of you, Faye. You’re the weapon. Now, prove it to yourself!”
The four demons and Witch appear. The other manages to get away from Jaxen with a gun aimed at his head.
“What do we have here?” the Witch says. It’s a female’s voice, smooth with power. Her dark eyes fall on mine. She lifts her nose, a small, wicked grin spreading across her face. “The Everlasting.” She looks over at Weldon. “Seize him. Stand the other next to him. Kill them.”
Terror slips inside of me, coiling around my heart. Jaxen reaches for his other flux, but the demon aims the gun in my direction, stopping him in his tracks.
“Over there,” the demon bellows out, pointing to the crate. Jaxen’s vibrating in anger. He looks back at me, and then moves to stand next to Weldon, who he can’t even look at.
Weldon’s eyes delve into mine, unearthing a strength I’ve yet to find in myself. I can tell by the look in his eyes that he’s already checked out of reality. He has nothing to lose. Death doesn’t scare him, and he’s left me on my own to figure this out. He’s left me to either suck it up, or let it all go.
I am the only thing in this entire universe that can get us out of this.
“Make it quick,” the Witch calls as she takes a step in my direction. “I’ll alert Bael and the Priestess of their presence.”
The demons cock their guns. Press the cold metal against Jaxen and Weldon’s forehead. Time slows as their fingers pull back on the triggers, and desperation switches on inside of me. “Nooo!” I scream as my magic flares to life. I tug hard on the air, on everything around me, so hard that it pulls everyone to their knees.
A blast of power, so strong I can’t even stand, slams into my core. I’m clawing the ground, gasping for air as I continue to tug and tug and tug, letting the darkness of their energies fill me up. I can barely make out the demon in front of me. Crawling over to him, I reach for his shoulder where his stigma shimmers, and somehow know that I can kill him if I can just get to the center of it.
I close my eyes, dig my fingers in through his flesh, and focus on pulling from him.
He disappears into ash.
I roll onto my back. The power inside of me is so dark, so menacing. It’s hard to separate who I am from it. It’s nothing like what I felt during training. It’s worse.
“Faye,” I hear Jaxen call out.
I roll and find him reaching for me. His face is deathly pale, eyes are strained in red, and his veins are visible behind his skin.
“You have to control it, Faye,” he squeezes out before collapsing on the ground.
Fear screams inside my heart—inside my mind. I don’t want to hurt him. I don’t want to hurt Weldon, who’s lying facedown, unmoving. I only want to protect them, but I can’t make it stop. The power… it’s so much… so consuming…
The Darkyn Witch falls to her face. Blood trickles out of her mouth as I tug again, pulling the last of her life force.
I can’t lift my head any longer. The power is lead in my system. It’s endless… a bottomless pit of hell. I blink slowly, feeling the lives around me slipping. A tear slips past my lids. I want to say I’m sorry. I want to apologize for being a screw-up. A murderer. A horrible monster who should be put down, but I can’t.
I’m a vacuum that has no end.
“You can do this.”
It’s Jaxen’s voice I hear. His words center me. My eyes flip open. I dig my hands into the concrete. Roll to my side. Opening my mouth, I purge the power that’s filling me up into the water next to us. As the power flows out of me, I feel my mind separating the energy I’m tugging on. I can see the difference.
Focus, I tell myself, refusing to shut my eyes even though they want to seal shut. I use the power I’m taking, letting it fill my muscles. Strengthen me.
Imaginary strings appear between me and the others around me. I sever the string connecting me to Jaxen and Weldon, turning back to the four remaining demons who are dragging their way toward me with a newfound purpose. I turn the extra power I feel toward them, pinning them down. With my flux in hand, I stab through every stigma until there’s nothing but ash in my wake. Until there’s nothing left for me to pull from.
When they’re finally gone, I drop my flux and sway on my feet. The concrete catches me, knocking the wind from my chest. I hear someone call out, but I can’t understand what they’re saying. The sky… it’s swirling before me. The stars are dancing and singing, and I feel my lips part with a small smile as I let myself drift far, far away.
“FAYE, WAKE UP.”
I’m fighting against a steel weight pressing against my eyelids. I know his voice, so deep and full of love, and all I want to do is see his green eyes alive and blinking. See his soft lips moving.
“Try the spell again,” he rushes out. There’s an oddness to his voice—a note of panic I’ve yet to hear in him before.
“Calm down, Jaxen. Just give her a minute,” Jezi replies on an exasperated exhale. I can almost see the attitude on her face. “She’s conscious, but the magic she put herself through has fatigued all of her senses.”
“Faye?” His voice is a soft caress in my mind.
“I’m okay,” I say back to him, feeling Jezi on the outside, listening in.
Jaxen sighs with relief. Runs his hand through my hair until my face is tilted in his direction. “She’s okay,” he says out loud, sounding like he needs to say the words just to be sure. “No thanks to you.” He grabs my hand and pulls it onto his lap.
“Oh, come off it,” Weldon says from across the room. I can just see him with his legs crossed and his eyes on his nails, picking at them like he has nothing better to do than sit here and babysit.
Jezi groans. “I’m going back to my room now,” she says bitterly. She pauses by Jaxen. I feel the disgust beaming off her, burying me further and further under humiliation. “Next time, you should listen to me. I told you Weldon wasn’t trustworthy.” Her feet stomp across the floor, and then a door closes shut.
“She only hates me because she secretly loves me,” Weldon says, his words rich with amusement. “It’s a classic case of playground-syndrome.” I hear the smile in his voice. “You just wait. She’ll come around soon enough.”
“This isn’t a damn game, Weldon. I could kill you,” Jaxen says, gripping my hand so tight I think he might crush it. “You put all of us in danger, and for what? To prove a point?”
There’s a long moment of silence. A very dangerous moment.
“It had to be done,” Weldon finally retorts. “We got what we needed, and then some.”
Jaxen lets go of my hand. The mattress raises a little as his weight disappears. I slowly open my eyes. Every muscle in my body feels like it’s been dipped in heavy metal and shoved in ice to freeze in place. It takes all my effort just to form words on my lips. “Do-don’t fight. He’s-he’s right, Jaxen. He did wha-what needed to be done,” I manage to say through the wad of cotton lodged in my throat.
Every muscle on Jaxen’s shirtless back is rigid. His fists clench and unclench at his sides. He’s a step away from Weldon, and only a heartbeat away from slamming his fist into Weldon’s face.
“See,” Weldon says with enough amusement to build an amusement park. “You should listen to your girl. She’s smart, that one.”
“Weldon,” I say before breaking off into a coughing fit. Jaxen turns back to me, reaching for a glass of water on my nightstand. He looks tired beyond words. I want to kiss away the dark circles under his eyes. I want to smooth away the hair that permanently stands from his hands tugging and tugging.
He lifts me up with his other arm and presses the glass to my mouth. It’s like silk as it slides down my throat, waking me up with every greedy gulp.
I glance ov
er at the clock. Three in the morning. We only have a few hours left until we have to be up and ready for class with the general, and I suddenly feel every single minute left that we have to sleep.
“What he did was foolish and wrong,” Jaxen says as I take my last sip. He’s trying to control his temper. I hear it in the wavering of his tone. “I can’t-I can’t trust someone who acts out on a whim. Someone who’s willing to put you in danger like that.”
After I take another sip, I push the glass away. I already feel a little strength coming back to me as the water settles in. “I controlled it though, Jaxen,” I say, following his gaze when he tries to look away from me. “I think I know how to control it now. Without Weldon’s whim, I may never have tried.”
His jaw clenches. I hear his teeth grind. “Whether you controlled it or not, putting your life at risk is unacceptable. I’m going to speak with Seamus about having him replaced as your partner.”
“Bullshit,” Weldon says, pushing off the wall.
Jaxen stands up, meeting Weldon in the middle of the room.
“Stop it!” I shout out, sensing what comes next. The fight. The anger. The blood.
My words overpower theirs.
“What happened was better than I could have imagined. Not only was I able to finally have a breakthrough with my power, but we have proof that we’re heading in the right direction. That Clara is the one to blame. We can take my Grimoire to Seamus. Show him what my mother wrote. He’ll have to retain her for investigation.”
Jaxen doesn’t move from his place. He keeps his stance firm as he glares Weldon down. “Yes, but we’ll still need more than that, Faye,” he says with his back to me. “The Priesthood will need solid evidence in order to make a conviction. Something more than the words written in your Grimoire.”