Page 108 of Elven Shadow

She summoned a handful of crackling red battle magic instead and put herself on full alert with everyone else.

Aldous looked just as stupefied to both hear that ominously laughing voice and see those shadows moving in the shape of a person. Unlike everyone else, though, he puffed out a sigh and instantly relaxed before stomping off in that direction.

“Wait.” Maxwell reached toward the changeling with his free hand.

Aldous shrugged out from under the shifter’s grip, scoffing as he waved aside his Head of Security’s concern. “Jesus. Everybody keep it in your pants. Like a bunch of terrified little kids down here stepping out into the woods on their own for the first time. What the hell is wrong with you people?”

He marched toward the stairs as if he hadn’t noticed a thing.

Then the shadowy figure took on full clarity and detail.

The baggy black pants. The oversized black sweatshirt with the hood pulled up to obscure its owner’s entire face but for those creepily off-putting, all-black orbs that served as his eyes.

The long, thick black leather gloves encasing both hands, which no one among Shade’s ranks had seen in their natural state.

It was Hector.

Rebecca realized this only a few seconds before it dawned on everyone else.

Aldous had fully relaxed at the sight of his pet nurúzhe finally joining them, but the rest of the task force tensed.

She saw it in the tightening jaw lines and darkening stares and wearily exchanged glances tossed about across the garage.

Even Maxwell seemed surprised by the nurúzhe’s appearance, though he hid the surprise beneath another scowl as he folded his arms.

Across the garage, Diego took a step forward in Rebecca’s direction.

She instantly shook her head again.

No, something else was going on here. Until she knew what that was, no way in hell would she humor Leonard, Diego, the other Shade rebels,ortheir plan, whatever it was. She wasn’t even supposed to be a part of it anyway, so why did Diego keep looking ather?

Beside her, Zida clicked her tongue and shook her head before muttering, “This ain’t right. Something’s going on here.”

No one could disagree with that.

Aldous quickened his pace toward Hector’s fully solidified form and spread his arms, heaving a sigh of relief. “Finally! Someone who knows what the fuck they’re doing. Took you long enough to join us, Hector. Where were you?”

“I was…indisposed.” Those lightless black orbs in the center of the guy’s dark hood moved with a life of their own—or maybe alifelessnessof their own would have been a more accurate way to describe it.

The guy could have been a life-sized statue if it weren’t for those unnatural eyes, completely pitch-black from all his work with death magic. Maybe even with dark alchemy as well—creating and animating lifeless bodies to serve their master in fulfilling the sole purpose for which they’d been made.

It seemed like a ridiculous idea, far-fetched, grasping for straws. But as Rebecca watched Aldous practically prance toward the nurúzhe standing at the base of the stairs, Hector’s black eyes sucked the light out of and away from everything around him.

Those eyes suddenly had a suspiciously similar gleam to the homunculi’s all-black orbs—the only true feature on any of their not-faces.

ButHector? Really?

Aldous didn’t say another word to him until they stood only a few feet apart. Then he stopped, looked Hector up and down with a tight smirk, and let out an equally tight chuckle. “Indisposed. Oh, I’msorry… Did we interrupt an important part of your day?”

Hector tilted his head back just enough to let some light into his hood to illuminate no more than the slow grin spreading across his lips.

Rebecca hadn’t seen that before, and it was a grin she could’ve gone without seeing forever.

The guy’s teeth were surprisingly, brilliantly white and straight, twinkling from within all that darkness surrounding him.

“I wouldn’t gothatfar,” Hector replied.

His sniveling, nasally voice made Rebecca grind her own teeth together in an effort not to throw herself at him to shake the smugness right out. This self-righteous little prick was almost worse than Aldous.

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