Page 33 of Soulbound Shadows: Part 1

Gabriel stared at me, lips quirking, and then he began to smile properly. His laugh was deep, bright, and completely genuine. It just made me laugh harder. Gabriel was grinning so widely that his eyes had scrunched into happy little half-moons. I couldn’t look away.

12

GABRIEL

Once we’d finally managed to regain some of our composure, we continued walking. The shadows were getting longer, and I’d begun to keep a passive eye out for a decent spot to make camp for the night.

I still felt out of sorts around Evangeline, unable to shake the guilt of what I’d imagined the night before, but the tension had eased a little, and the conversation between us had begun to flow more freely.

“And when I got there, they had the baby all dressed up like a little doll, and they were trying to teach it to shapeshift,” Evangeline was telling me. “The baby seemed to be having a pretty great time, at least. And it seems like she picked up on the lesson, too, because according to her parents, she still sprouts feathers sometimes.”

“From… where?” I asked, morbidly fascinated.

“Her hair,” Evangeline said. “Bluejay feathers, maybe three inches long. I’ve got one in my apartment somewhere.”

“Bizarre. Do you think the ability will fade as she grows up?”

Evangeline shrugged, brushing a lock of hair out of her face. “No idea. Fairy magic is completely different from witch magic. Way wilder and less predictable. It’s like comparing a wildfire to an oven.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” I said. “Your oven seems very… hot?”

Evangeline scrunched up her nose. “Yeah, okay, it was a weird metaphor. Maybe… Okay, if Cardamom’s magic is like the waterfall, then mine is like a… pressure washer, I guess? Or one of those garden hoses with the nozzle that has a bunch of different settings.”

There was a loud crash in the woods off to the other side of the river, and we both fell quiet. I was almost glad for the interruption since I’d slowly been losing my internal battle to suppress the part of myself that desperately wanted to point out the difference between a metaphor and a simile. Evangeline had stopped in her tracks, eyes fixed on the source of the noise.

There was another crash. Then another. Whatever it was, was getting closer quickly.

“Do you think it’ll be able to cross the river?” Evangeline asked in a low, tense murmur.

“I’m not sure,” I murmured back. “But it sounds big.”

Evangeline nodded, sharp and businesslike, then opened her mouth to say something. I didn’t get to find out what it was, though, because that was the moment the source of the crashing burst out into the open.

It was a bear. Or, to be more accurate, it had been a bear once. Its hulking shape was bony, covered in matted, patchy fur, its eyes white and glassy. The thing reeked of dark magic, and jagged purple runes covered every inch of skin where the fur had been torn away. Thankfully, it hadn’t noticed us yet, but as it lurched to the edge of the water, swinging its huge head from side to side, I knew it was only a matter of time.

“Let’s go,” Evangeline mouthed, pointing toward the woods on our side of the river.

I looked back at the bear and reached out with my mind as gently as I could, barely brushing against its own. As I felt the connection, I stifled a gasp. Waves of excruciating pain crashed through me. The bear was starving and half-mad with pain, and it wasn’t the one in control. Something else was in its mind.

I leaned down to Evangeline, so close that my lips nearly brushed her ear. “Could you stun it?” I whispered. “Or just keep it pinned for a moment?”

Evangeline pulled back and looked at me like I’d lost my mind. Her eyes flicked over my face searchingly, and her expression softened and then resolved into one of determination. She nodded.

“Wait for my signal,” I mouthed, and she nodded again. I paced a few yards away from her until I was directly across the river from the creature. The afternoon light glinted off something on its head.

I squared my shoulders and prepared to do something deeply stupid.

“Over here!” I yelled, cupping my hands around my mouth. The bear’s head shot up toward me, its white eyes unblinking. “Would the cursed bear like a vampire snack? You look hungry.”

The bear charged, crashing through the river, sending water spraying up into the air. It snarled, jaws dripping with purple spittle. I waited, staring it down. Then, as soon as it had made it to the bank, I yelled again.

“Evangeline, now!” I called out, sparing a moment to hope that she actually could restrain this thing.

I felt a surge of power around me. Shimmering golden light wrapped around the beast’s legs, sending it crashing to the ground. It let out a bellow that no living creature should have been capable of making, its sides heaving. The strings of golden light wrapped all the way up its legs, anchoring it to the blue-gray clay of the riverbank. Its jaws snapped furiously.

“Could you muzzle it?” I called.

Evangeline twisted her hand, sending another band of light to wrap around the creature’s scarred snout.

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