Page 556 of Shadowblood Souls
But it comes with a starker uncertainty that sinks through my abdomen. Without the tentacles, I might only be capable of the relatively minor healing I could pull off as a kid and teenager.
Would that be so awful, if we weren’t fighting battles where my friends might take near-fatal injuries?
Can I even really hope that we’ll finally get the kind of peace where giving them up wouldn’t feel like a huge risk?
Before I can prod at that question much further, a curvy figure bursts out of the shadows with a jostle of blond curls. Pearl grins up at Rollick with an eager but urgent air.
“Toni gave them the push they needed!” she crows. “We’ve got them! The Guardianship is making their plans for Balthazar—and he’s agreed to meet them tomorrow.”
Sixteen
Riva
Ilean against the tree trunk, the tang of pine scent tickling my nose, and will away the knots in my stomach. Knots that aren’t only because of the perilous mission we’re here to carry out.
In every direction around my perch about ten feet off the ground, trees loom close together. Their branches—some bare, many sprouting needles so dense they look like a chillier version of palm-tree fronds—crisscross overhead, filtering the late-afternoon sunlight.
A faint dusting of snow coats the forest floor and the winter-wizened vegetation between the trees, which is why I’m up in the air. Turning invisible doesn’t do us much good when our footprints will still be seen.
Everything about this place washes over me like an echo from the past. The only thing missing from the memories it stirs up is the dark walls and sloping roof of Ursula Engel’s cabin.
We aren’t anywhere near our creator’s final home, the site of her death. It turns out—maybe not surprisingly, considering they owned an entire tropical island—that the Guardianship has a little property in Europe too. Including several dozen acres of undeveloped forest in northern Wales.
Balthazar agreed to meet them here, on a slab of concrete the size of a tennis court that’s the only sign of human intervention here so far. It’s just beyond the limits of my vision through the trees up ahead.
Whatever the guardians planned to do with this territory, they haven’t gotten very far yet.
We didn’t want to approach that site too closely until Balthazar arrived. We don’t know how carefully the guardians are patrolling the woods… or whether our greater foe might have sent some of his own people to make an advance survey of the terrain.
He’s definitely bringing some of the shadowbloods with him. We’d briefly hoped that we might be able to end the confrontation before it even started, with Sorsha blasting his helicopter out of the sky. But in my most recent drowsing for his location, I determined that Nadia, Booker, and Devon are in the helicopter with him.
We have no idea how many of the other shadowblood kids he might be bringing along. Sorsha has managed to get her sights on it from a distance and reported it’s a large one that could hold at least twelve people as well as the pilot.
She didn’t argue when I insisted that we had to wait until we could strike at Balthazar without murdering the kids too. Neither did Rollick.
I should probably be glad that most of the demon’s allies didn’t come along this far on the mission, since the Guardianship has prepped the forest around their future building site with numerous deposits of silver and iron. I canonly imagine what the other shadowkind would have to say about our hesitation.
It shouldn’t be a problem. Balthazar will get out of the helicopter, and all I need is to set eyes on him to project the killing shriek already vibrating at the base of my throat. Or maybe Jacob or Dominic or Sorsha will get a clear enough line of attack first.
Our former captor isn’t leaving this forest alive, one way or the other. Not as long as we’re alive to have any say about it.
An icy breeze winds between the branches. Our supernatural concealment shields us from sight but not the nipping chill. My fingers curl inside the gloves I’m ready to tear off the instant I need my claws.
The slimmer branches sway around me. Everywhere I look, images float up from our stealthy trek to Engel’s isolated home.
I can’t help thinking back to the deceptive welcome she gave us while she was plotting our deaths the whole time. To the words she hurled at us as her mercenaries burst into the house.
You’re monsters of the worst kind. Abominations. Now I can end the catastrophe I set in motion.
I lower my head and gather my resolve, ignoring the pained thud of my heart. Our creator didn’t end us. She was wrong.
I’m not going to let the GuardianshiporBalthazar doom us and the other shadowbloods, as much as they might want to.
A high-pitched bird call peals through the forest, and my gaze darts up. It’s a whistle we’re using as a signal—Zian is alerting us that it’s time to close in.
I shed my gloves and dart along the branch I’m perched on to leap to the tree ahead of me. My feet land with only the softest patter. My clawed fingers dig into the bark to steady me.
Over the rustling of the wind through the pine needles, the distant warble of helicopter blades reaches my ears. Zian’s heightened senses will have picked it up before the rest of us.
