Page 274 of Shadowblood Souls
The steel slabs whir apart. Daylight and a warm breeze spill through the opening.
My heart lifts of its own accord.
I hadn’t realized how dim and cool the rocky interior was until now, as I stepped out onto a stone platform under the bright sun. I stall in my tracks just beyond the entrance, my jaw going slack at the scene before me.
The walls of the building I’ve just exited are rock because it’s carved right into the face of a mountain. A mountain that’s part of a range looming in craggy peaks all around a small but lush valley spread out some fifty feet below our vantage point.
Immediately in front of us, water burbles in a crystalline spring. A few acres of cleared land gleam with vibrantly green grass.
Some of that area has been left as a totally open field. Other parts have been set up for training activities: an elaborate jungle gym-slash-obstacle course, shooting or throwing targets, a trampled track.
A couple of running trails veer off into the tropical forest that fills the rest of the valley. I can’t make out much through the dense canopy of leaves.
Bird song trills through the air. A flash of red-and-yellow feathers darts through the branches.
A faint perfume drifts on the breeze to my nose, sweet florals with a mossy undertone.
“The Guardianship owns this island,” Clancy says, gazing out over the valley with a satisfied expression. “A long time ago, thisspot was a crater smashed into the mountains by a meteor. Now it’s become a place where life can thrive.”
He shoots a pointed look my way. “Even the most desolate things can transform into something spectacular.”
I’d wrinkle my nose at the blatant insinuation about my own usefulness, but my attention has been drawn to the figures who are moving amid the training equipment.
My pulse stutters at the thought that I might see my guys among them, but I don’t recognize any of the current trainees. They’re all young, I determine after studying them for a minute. Mid to late teens.
As that thought passes through my head, one of the guys slips on the climbing ropes. The girl ahead of him jerks around at his yelp and flings out her arm—and an invisible force shoves him back into balance.
My mouth goes dry. “They’re shadowbloods. You’re training them here now?”
Clancy nods. “I’ve gathered as many of our subjects as I can at this facility. Those who were away from their facilities—in the interests of tracking your group down—are on their way now. That will be all of them… except the six you led to the monsters.”
The six we helped escape from imprisonment, he means.
My mouth tightens, my appreciation of the gorgeous setting fading. I turn toward him, the words to tell him off rising up my throat, and find him already watching me.
“Do you want to know what the creatures who pretended to be your allies did to those children?” he asks in a low voice.
An uneasy prickle ripples over my skin. “What do you mean?”
Clancy takes out his phone. “Some of them can be very persuasive… but we consider them monsters for a reason.”
When he points the screen toward me again, my stomach flips over.
It’s a photograph of four bodies sprawled on the forest floor under muted daylight. I can’t see much of the two farther figures other than that there’s blood splashed across them.
The closer two are clearly dead. Eyes staring vacantly, flesh drained to white. Scarlet flecks dapple their cheeks.
I know the girl. She’s one of the two I led out of the facility.
Clancy gives me several seconds to take the image in and then slides to another, showing the other two forms. There’s the boy I escorted out, equally limp, his arm torn right from its socket.
In my shock, my voice breaks. “But— How did that happen? Who?—”
“The beasts you brought them to must have felt it best to eliminate the threat the shadowbloods represented as quickly as possible.” Clancy tucks the phone away, his tone now grim. “I’d imagine they only leftyoualive as long as they did in the hopes you’d help them eliminate more of your kind.”
My stomach roils. No. That doesn’t make sense.
I can’t imagine Pearl, the bubbly, curious succubus, planning a slaughter. And Rollick, the demon who was overseeing our mission—he proved over and over that he was on our side.
