Page 44 of Two Thousand Shadows

He reached for his phone in his back pocket. A quick check of the weather app would reveal if this storm had been part of the forecast. However, a strange warning itch crawled up the nape ofhis neck. Goose bumps broke out across his skin. Something was wrong.

Lunging forward, he planted his left foot and spun, lifting his sword up to where his neck had been only a second earlier. Metal clanged against metal, and Junjie’s blood froze in his veins as Jiang Chong stepped out of a rip in the darkness, his sword centimeters away from where Junjie had been standing.

Fear and hatred seized Junjie by the throat and tried to choke him as he stared at the vampire who’d made him and his clan into near-immortal blood-sucking monsters. The heartless creature who’d slaughtered almost all the Zhang clan and the members of the sect he’d deemed unfit to serve him and the emperor. The demon who’d tormented him for years before he’d snapped.

“Hello, my would-be murderer,” Jiang Chong growled. With vicious determination, Jiang Chong swung his sword again, nearly taking Junjie’s head off as he woke from his shocked paralysis.

Junjie dodged the first swing and blocked the next. A cold sweat broke out across his flesh, chilling him to the bone. How was he supposed to defeat Jiang Chong? The last time they’d succeeded in “killing” him, it had taken the entire clan. This time he was alone, and he was afraid Jiang Chong knew it.

Somewhere behind him, a door opened and Moon’s panicked voice rang out. “Something has broken through the protective spells!”

“I noticed,” Junjie grunted between clenched teeth.

“Holy shit! That’s Jiang Chong!”

Junjie didn’t dare take his eyes off Jiang Chong to look at Moon. It was on the tip of his tongue to order Moon to grab Erik and Ming Yu to escape on foot, and call Chen for help, but that could be part of Jiang Chong’s plan to pick them off one by one.Possibly even the fae’s attempt to kidnap some of his clan. No. It was safest in the house.

“Go back inside! Lock yourself in the armory with Erik and Ming Yu. Call Chen!” Junjie ordered.

“But I can help you!”

“No! You are my shidi! You will obey my commands. Protect Erik and Ming Yu!” A clang of his sword crashing into Jiang Chong’s punctuated every sentence.

“Yes, Jun-Jun.” The door slammed shut, and Junjie took a small breath of relief. The three members of his clan in the house were as safe as they could be. All of his attention was now on the evil monster in front of him.

“All alone. No one to save you this time,” Jiang Chong crooned. His long black hair fanned out behind him as he slipped out of reach of Junjie’s sword. “If you weren’t such a coward, though, you could have used your gift and seen my arrival long before it occurred. The rest of your clan could have been here to help you fight me.”

The demented monster’s words had a way of cutting deeper than any sword blade. Pain slashed across his heart, and Junjie retreated when he should have pressed on.

“Whether I use my gift or not, we both know what I see cannot be changed.” Junjie’s jaw ached as he clenched his teeth. “If I am meant to destroy you today, that is what shall happen.”

Jiang Chong’s answering cackle was like ice picks piercing his ears. “Destroy me? You’ve never beaten me on your own. Always the weak student relying on his brother to carry him. I should have culled you with the others that first night.”

“Culled?” he repeated as the heat of rage burned away the icy bite of fear that had nearly incapacitated him at the appearance of his creator. “Don’t you mean murdered? You think you should have murdered me the same way you killed Cao Zimo? Or how you murdered Ming Tao? And Ruo Xuan? And Hongyi?”

“There’s no point in listing their names. I never bothered to learn any of them. A single glance was all it took to see they were worthless.”

“I don’t say their names for your benefit,” Junjie snarled. He tightened his grip on his sword and his knuckles throbbed, cracking softly. “I say them because they deserve to be remembered by someone. The same way they deserved to live a long life.”

Jiang Chong glided away from the sharp slice of Junjie’s blade, laughing as he moved behind a tree. That horrific sound echoed through the garden and wove between the trees, tainting everything it touched like an insidious poison.

“Sadly, a nobody is the only one who remembers them.”

“I’m not a nobody. I’m the son of Zhang Yuxi, grandson of Zhang Jiawei—one of the great masters of the Sword of the Heavenly Garden sect.”

“You’re a bastard at best, and the Zhang clan has just the word of that whore to go by,” Jiang Chong mocked. “Only the gods know who your true father was.”

Junjie roared, slashing at his old master as the monster preyed on his darkest fears. He didn’t ask how the man had come by his secrets. He’d once been the head of the emperor’s intelligence department. It made sense that the vampire knew things he shouldn’t.

Jiang Chong continued to dodge and block his slashes. The one good thing was that his laughing had stopped as he focused on deflecting and evading.

Blocking out all other worries and thoughts, Junjie turned his full attention on all the skills he’d honed for two thousand years. His silver blade became a blur as it moved through the air, catching and reflecting the moonlight for a heartbeat before slipping into the swirling blackness.

Jiang Chong struggled to keep up. He clenched his teeth into a feral snarl. Sweat dampened his hair at the temples and slid down the sides of his face.

“Bastard,” he growled, but the word meant nothing to Junjie as he pursued his maker through the garden.

Just as Junjie got inside his guard and was going to land a crippling blow, Jiang Chong opened a doorway to the dead realm and slipped away.

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