Page 5 of The Shadows of Excess

His brows knitted together in confusion, and he furrowed his brow. “What? I don’t understand…” His voice faltered as he tried to form a coherent sentence. His eyes darted to the rearview mirror and widened as realization hit him like a splash of cold water.

“Justice gave him his blood…” His drawled words were more statement than question.

His gaze was bewildered, as if he couldn’t believe I betrayed the code. I held up my head. “What would you have done, brother? Would you have done everything possible to save him, or would you have let him die to honor our family code?”

Silence fell in the car, enveloping us like the chill of a cold winter’s day. It was a heavy, penetrating quiet, the kind that seemed to freeze time itself, leaving us isolated in our own thoughts and uncertainties about what I had done.

Dad finally broke the silence. “Damon never would have betrayed me. He’s a good son.”

Meaning I was a bad daughter. Guilt and pain pierced my heart as I realized how much of a disappointment I was to my dad.

Damon glanced at me, and I braced myself for the outburst, expecting him to lay into me, to tell me how reckless I’d been, how much I’d screwed up. His eyes held mine for several tense, drawn-out moments, a storm of emotions flickering across his face. Then, his gaze shifted to the rearview mirror, looking at our dad’s reflection.

After a brief, heavy silence, he spoke, his voice a mix of gruff understanding and a deep-seated sense of familial duty. “I would have done the same damn thing,” he admitted, a reluctant acceptance in his tone. It wasn’t an approval, but it was an acknowledgment of our impossible situation.

“You know what this means, don’t you?” Dad growled, his voice a tumultuous mix of anger and despair. “I’m a damn bloodsucker now. I’m going to become one of those things we’ve spent our lives fighting against. You’ve spat on everything we stood for, disgraced your mother’s memory.” The venom in his voice was like a blade, cutting through me with a sharp, searing pain that went deeper than words.

Before the tension could escalate further, Tim interjected, his voice firm and cutting through the charged atmosphere. “You’re not a bloodsucker yet, you idjit.” He had a no-nonsense edge to his words. “We’ve got a remedy to turn you back human. Ain’t gonna be a walk in the park, but it’s doable. So cut the crap and stop berating your kids. They did what they thought was right.”

I turned in my seat. “There really is a remedy?”

Tim nodded, his expression serious with a hint of wryness. “Yep, there is. And before you ask, your old man ain’t the first one to end up in this kind of pickle. We’ve had to deal with this sort of mess before. It ain’t pretty, but it works. So, yeah, there’s a way to fix him up, even if he’s too stubborn to admit it.”

Dad’s square jaw clenched tight, a clear sign of his inner turmoil. He kept his gaze fixed out the window, deliberately avoiding eye contact with any of us, as if the mere act of acknowledging the conversation would make him lose his cool.

“Where is this remedy?” Damon’s voice was uncharacteristically quiet, mirroring the seriousness of our situation.

Tim turned to face him, his expression a mix of resolve and a hint of weariness. “Where else? Back at The Grove. It’s not exactly on the shelves at your local drugstore.”

With a determined glint in his eye, Damon slammed his foot on the gas, and the Ford Fairlane roared to life, tearing down the highway. “The Grove it is.”

“Damon, you notice anyone tailing us?” Tim asked, his tone suggesting he was already a few steps ahead in his thinking.

Damon glanced in the rearview mirror, his gaze sweeping the road behind us with practiced caution. “No, coast’s clear,” he replied.

“Don’t you find that odd?” Tim prodded in a gruff, skeptical tone that reminded me we weren’t out of the woods yet. “In our line of work, ‘too quiet’ is usually the calm before the storm.”

His words sent a chill down my spine. I glanced in the side mirror. The road behind us was empty, eerily clear. Tim’s warning had sown a seed of doubt. What if we were wrong? In a world where demons could hide in plain sight, could they have found a way to make themselves invisible? The possibility made every hair on my body quiver. With these demons, we didn’t have a playbook to navigate their moves, leaving us completely in the dark.

Dad finally broke his silence, his voice low and tense. Yet, he continued to stare out the window as if lost in thought or perhaps wary of the shadows that played there. “Maci’s a shadow dragon.” A hint of resignation edged his tone. “She can meld into the dark so seamlessly, we wouldn’t even know she’s lurking right there.”

At this, Tim ran a hand over his face, a gesture that spoke of weariness and frustration, so characteristic of him. “Great, just great,” he grumbled. “For all we know, she could be tailing us right now, and we’d be clueless. And here we are, potentially leading her straight to the hunter’s haven.”

But we didn’t have a choice. The Grove was our only hope, the one place with everything we needed to cure Dad. The risk of exposing our secret hideout to the enemy didn’t wash down well with anyone.

“She could be tailing Dr. Gould and Justice,” I mumbled. Not that I wanted them to be in danger, either.

“Possibly,” Tim stated. “I get the feeling Maci doesn’t want any of her secrets revealed until she’s good and ready.”

I settled back into my seat, trying to find some semblance of comfort, but it eluded me. With each passing mile, a gnawing sense of unease grew within me, a persistent feeling that we were being stealthily followed. My eyes instinctively drifted upward, scanning the vast expanse of sky for any sign of a dragon. But if Maci was lurking up there, cloaked in her shadowy form, she remained invisible to my searching gaze.

As we continued our journey, the familiar glow of The Grove emerged in the distance, a beacon cutting through the encroaching darkness. To any outsider, The Grove appeared nothing more than a lively pub, its raucous atmosphere a blend of hunters and unsuspecting public. But to those in the know, it was much more. A sanctuary, a bastion for hunters, a place steeped in secrecy and solidarity.

The warm light of The Grove contrasted starkly with the cold knot of apprehension in my stomach. Even as we drew closer to this supposed safe haven, I couldn’t shake the feeling of invisible eyes watching, tracking our every move. The thought of Maci tailing us, ready to burn down our sanctuary, made me squirm.

Maci had promised revenge. What if that meant burning The Grove to the ground? It would make sense, and even with everything in our arsenal, we didn’t have the means to take down a dragon. By coming here, we were endangering everyone there. The hunters, who understood the risks of our world, and the unsuspecting patrons, who had no idea of the supernatural dangers that lurked in the shadows.

The weight of this realization sat heavily on my chest. The Grove, a haven for hunters and a place of camaraderie, could unwittingly become a battleground. The closer we got, the more I wrestled with the dilemma. Were we leading a dragon to the doorstep of the people we were supposed to protect?

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