Sixteen
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Samkiel
Y ou’re running out of time.
An unknown voice whispered in my head, but it was more than a
voice. It was a feeling, and one I couldn’t explain. The first snowfall of winter began to dust the world in a light flurry. It landed upon the street and sidewalks, a nice coat of white over the city. I stood amongst the mortals and celestials as they went about their busy day. Several people stopped to take pictures on their phones, but for the most part, they did not bother me. Some stared too long, but they kept their distance even as they whispered and gawked.
I should be accustomed to it. I have had nothing but beings praising me since the minute I was born. Their symbol of hope and peace and a promise of a new world. A responsibility I soon learned to dread. I pushed off the lamppost and turned toward the large window. My reflection shone back, the long coat hanging to my knees over the dark shirt and pants. I sighed and looked past it, staring inside. Logan got up from his seat, the older gentleman brushing remnants of hair off his shoulders as he smiled and laughed. Logan slipped him more than enough money to pay for the haircut.
The man tried to decline but failed. The door chimed, and Logan joined me on the street, people moving out of his way.
I handed him a coffee, steam dancing off the top.
“You know the Guild has barbers, too?” Logan accepted the cup gratefully and took a sip as we started down the sidewalk. We towered over most of the mortals, and they moved out of our way almost instinctively.
Silver City had become one of the most popular places in all of Onuna. It had grown substantially since it was first established, now a bustling city
with buildings that reached past the clouds, filled with businesses, shops, stores, and homes as far as the eye could see.
I glanced at him as I sipped my drink. “Yes, there are, but I needed to get you out of the Guild. If you are not holed up there, you are gone all night.”
His eyes cut to mine. He didn’t explain why he had been gone so much, but I knew. Logan still searched for Neverra. He would until the mark on his hand burned out. So far, there had been no trace of her in this realm, which seemed inconceivable.
“Besides, think of it as a gift for how you helped me not look so,” I searched for the right word, “rough, I suppose.”
He had spent so much time worrying about everyone else he had let himself go. His hair had been unruly, and a beard had obscured his face for a while now.
“Thanks.” He forced a smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. Nothing had existed in his eyes but rage and despair for weeks. I was losing him. I knew
that, and I refused to let it happen.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Logan chuckled. “It’s funny hearing you say that to me. When you first
got back, it was I who asked.”
“Things change, I suppose.”
Logan was one of my closest friends, and I despised he saw so much, despised he could pick up on my moods and read me like a damned open
book.
“They do.”
It was silent for another moment, both of us lost in our own heads as
cars honked and people laughed.
“It’s not her,” Logan said.
“Hmm?”
“Dianna. It’s not her. Not really. Gabby spoke about it once with Nev and I. How bad she had gotten when she first changed. She also told me she dragged her back from it, and I know you can, too. She’s just grieving.”
“I know. Gabby told me the same thing, oddly enough. Not in great detail, but she did mention it to me.”
“You spoke to her?” Logan lifted a brow.
“Yes, I had called to talk to you, but she answered. She spoke like Dianna. As if she has never met a stranger in her life.”
“That she did.” Logan smiled softly.
I knew Logan had cared for Dianna’s sister. So had Neverra, and that care had led to Neverra being so far out of our reach.
“I hope that you also know anyone Dianna is with physically while she is in this place of despair means nothing to her.”
I stopped, my eyes shutting as he hit a nerve. I’d confided in him after the sinking of that damned ship, but we’d not spoken of it since.
“It’s idiotic to have such strong feelings regarding that.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You know I wanted to kill him, the one she touched, as if she hadn’t already scattered his corpse around the room. I wanted to put him back together and kill him again. The feeling I got knowing someone had touched her so intimately.” I shook my head. “I’ve only felt that in battle, that pure blinding rage, yet there I was contemplating the murder of a mere mortal. A mortal, as if there is even the slightest competition compared to me.”
A street lamp above us flickered before bursting.
Logan smirked as the few people closest to us scurried by a tad faster.
“I’m possessive of Neverra in the same regard.”
“That is different. I have no claim over Dianna.” My voice was barely above a whisper. “It is dull-witted of me to profess such an assertion when we never spoke of it. Even if it pains me, we never talked about ourselves like that. Everything happened so quickly, I suppose. One moment I felt as if we couldn’t stand the sight of each other, and the next…” I glanced at the cup in my hand as if it would give me answers. “The next, I couldn’t stand the thought of being away from her.”
Logan’s hand landed on my shoulder, squeezing once. “Well, I guess you should make your feelings known when you get the chance.”
I sighed. “I have always been much better at solving my problems with fists and swords than words. There has never been someone like Dianna for me. I’ve never had someone who I cared for so deeply. I think it was easier back then.”
“Easy? Maybe, but you were alone. I saw it no matter who you surrounded yourself with or how many lovers you had. I always saw it. That fleeting look before you’d catch yourself and bury it. I did not see that look when you were with her, not even for a second, so if it’s real to you, if you
could love this girl, it’s all worth it.” Logan’s jaw clenched as he glanced at his finger and back. “It’s always worth it.”
“You’re so much better at speeches than I.” I forced a smile, his words settling into my very soul.
Logan shrugged and took a sip of his coffee. “I’ve been around a lot of gods.”
“I hear you and will heed your advice. If I ever get such a chance, I will not hesitate.”
“Good.” Logan was silent for a moment, the snow crunching beneath our feet as we continued down the sidewalk. “A thousand plus years fighting beside you, battling countless monsters, gods, and things I’d rather forget, and not once have I been afraid until now. This feels different.
Wrong. Like we angered some elemental, omnipotent beast, and now we are paying for a crime we didn’t commit.”
I only nodded. Logan was not wrong, not at all. I felt it too.
You’re running out of time.
I heard the whisper every time I tried to close my eyes.
“You okay?”
I glanced at him, not realizing I had placed my hand above my eyes, rubbing at the dull ache. “Yes, just headaches.”
“More frequent?”
I nodded. “I am becoming more frustrated. We have no leads. No one is talking, and nothing is stirring. The Otherworld is quiet, as if something is waiting for the precise moment to strike. It is wearing on me.” And the dreams. But I did not want to burden him with the harrowing premonitions that bit at my heels like ravenous beasts.
He glanced at me as if he could read my thoughts. “You’re closing yourself off again. Even if you haven’t returned to the remains of our home and locked yourself away, you’re leaving us again. No matter how much you try to hide it, I can feel it.”
I stopped, and he stopped with me, turning to face me. My finger tapped against the lip of my cup. “You sound like Vincent now.”
“What? Worried about you?”
“There is nothing to worry about,” I lied. “We must concentrate on stopping whatever nefarious plan Kaden is concocting with that book.”
He didn’t believe me, nor did I have time to try to be more convincing.
Luckily enough, his phone rang, interrupting our conversation. He
answered the phone, listening but never looking away from me.
“Got it,” he said and hung up, his words short and clipped. “Edgar is awake.”
E dgar , the crime lord , stared at V incent , L ogan , and me as we entered the intensive care room. He wore a thick white gown, a tangle of tubes and wires protruding from him in all directions. The machines whirled and beeped, working to keep the mortal alive.
“You guys are some big motherfuckers.” The monitor near him sped up as his heart rate increased. Fear? Maybe, but something told me it was not us being here that made his heart beat so erratically.
Vincent shifted on his feet, and I folded my arms. Logan leaned against the wall, parking himself near the door.
“Tell me what happened.”
He glanced at me, the bruises on his face still apparent. The cuts and his bandaged arms told me Dianna had tossed him through something.
“We had a meeting. Waiting for Webster.” The name was acid in my veins. I couldn’t forget that she’d let him touch her. “He showed alright, except it wasn’t him. It was her.”
The monitor beeped a tad faster. “She was quick, faster than before.
Kaden always spoke of what a perfect killing machine she would be if she just let go of her mortality. I guess her sister was just that—her mortality.”
That I already knew. Gabby was Dianna’s heart, her moral compass.
The one part of her that kept her balanced and grounded. Gabby could reach her far better than I could. Without her, Dianna’s world shattered, dragging
mine with it.
“Go on,” I pressed, growing restless.
“She slaughtered all of us, asking about the ships that Santiago had. She wanted to know about the iron Kaden wanted to move, too.”
“And you told her about it? That is why you are alive?”
“Alive is questionable.” Edgar coughed, and I heard the fluid still present in his lungs, along with an ominous crackle. If the blood in them did
not kill him, the cancer beneath his breast would.
“How did you survive?”
He lowered his head, nodding toward his phone. I looked at Vincent. He grabbed it and handed it to me. I pressed a button, and the screen lit up, showing me a picture of Edgar and a woman, both smiling. They were in a garden, surrounded by flowers, a strange and innocent image for a man known for trafficking mortal flesh.
“She saw the picture and stopped. Of course, I was good and well impaled against a wall at the time.”
I handed the phone back to Vincent, who pocketed it. This had to be before she showed up at the ship. I had smelled blood on her, and now I knew where it came from.
“What else did you two talk about? I need names and dates. What were you to do after the meeting? How much more iron does he need?” I didn’t tell him I had shut down all the water traffic from here to the Naimer Sea. I had celestials at every port, harbor, and dock. Nothing left unless I allowed it, and no iron had shipped anywhere since the explosion.
Edgar shrugged, causing the line of fluids on his arm to pull tight. “I don’t know. We only get a message and follow orders. If we don’t, Tobias shows up. Tobias is the only one who speaks to Kaden now. He would know, but I have a feeling you won’t find him until Kaden is ready.”
I had no doubt that was true. I rubbed my jaw, mulling over the information Edgar had given me. It was nowhere near what I needed.
“Where is his hideout? Besides Novas? Another location he would frequent.”
“I don’t know, man. We, us mortals, were never that close to him. Only those in his close circle have any information. Dianna might know, but she is cleaning house.”
I was growing more and more frustrated by the second. We had nothing.
I was a step behind her, and I was so afraid that it would be too late by the time I caught up. How could Kaden hide so well? How could she? I had every known resource in this realm looking, yet we had nothing. The lights flickered in the room, machines beeping, and alarms blaring as a bit of my frustration and power seeped out. Vincent and Logan glanced at me but said nothing.
“You will be taken into custody for your crimes against the Etherworld.
Your stay will be as long as it needs to be before you are judged by The
Council of Hadrameil.”
He chuckled and gazed out the large window of his room, watching the snow swirl in the chill wind. We were high enough here that you could see the mountains in the distance.
“Eh, I’ve lived a long life and done things I wish I hadn’t, but at least, judgment or not, I’ll see Evelyn again.” He looked at me, a strange look crossing his features. “You asked me why she stopped. She didn’t. The picture of my wife made her pause, and I might have gotten fewer bruises had I not opened my mouth. Evelyn always said I talked too much.”
“Explain.”
Edgar coughed once more. “She went on a rampage in that warehouse, but I saw it. She had that same damned look I’ve seen so many times in the mirror. I figured out why, and I might have thrown it in her face, but I knew I was going to die, anyway.”
Every muscle in my body tensed, instinctively seeking to protect her, even though I knew she did not need it. Logan shifted closer, placing a hand on my shoulder. “What did you say to her?”
“I just told her the truth. I told her that the reason she is really mad is
you.”
“Me?”
Edgar’s smile made his eyes crinkle as if my reaction alone told him everything he had wished to know. “Yup. Even monsters love something.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but a loud boom raked through the sky, the crescendo shaking the hospital. The lights flickered off, then came back on with a low hum. Vincent looked at me, but I shook my head. It was not me. My heart began to race as Logan, Vincent, and I strode to the window.
The neighboring buildings went dark, the entire power grid shutting down for miles, but it was the three iridescent cobalt lights racing toward Silver City that gave me pause. They burst through the atmosphere with such force it shook the world.
I spun toward Vincent, my voice booming. “You called them!”
Vincent took a step back, his eyes widening as he held his hands palms
out. Logan flanked my side.
“No, no, I didn’t. I swear it.”
He had to be lying because I had not summoned them, but The Hand
had returned.
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