Page 538 of Shadowblood Souls
That wouldn’t be so surprising. We saw military figures at the scene in London when we tried to help with the rescue efforts.
No, what’s startling is the woven metal vests draped over their typical uniforms. Glinting pale gray… like silver and iron.
Like the protections the guardians wore in the facilities, that they hoped would ward off our shadowy powers. That didn’t work on us, but itwoulddeflect full shadowkind.
More metal flashes in their hands. They’re holding long, pointed guns like silvery bayonets.
My arms rise to hug myself instinctively. Somehow I’m going to bet that both the brutal stabbing protrusions and the bullets loaded into those things are customized to do maximum damage to beings like the ones around me.
“Fuck,” Andreas mutters. “He actually convinced someone to go along with his crazy instructions.”
Dominic lets out a strained chuckle. “They probably don’t sound so crazy when people with impossible abilities keep bashing up cities all over the world.”
Billy bobs nervously on his feet, his gaze skittering between us. “It doesn’t really make sense, though, does it? I thought those metals didn’t have any effect on shadowbloods. And it’s shadowbloods carrying out the attacks.”
Rollick’s lips have flattened into a tight line. “It isn’t what the soldiers do there that matters. It’s what they do later, now that they’re on board.”
“Exactly.” I hug myself tighter. “Balthazar doesn’t want the other armies fighting his army of shadowbloods. He’s prepping them so that they’ll be totally equipped when he talks their governments into hunting down actual shadowkind.”
And if he’s managed to start convincing the world’s leaders to take this much of his advice in just one week… how much longer do we have before he’s directing squads of shadowkind-killers all across the planet?
Ten
Andreas
The room looks as if it’s empty. You’d assume it is… as long as you don’t try to walk too far into it, anyway.
I’ve turned every piece of furniture, every decoration and knickknack, in the guest bedroom totally invisible. But I can still stub my toe on the base of the dresser, like I did just a second ago.
I fumble my way over to the invisible bed and sink my also-invisible body down onto the covers. After a brief rub, the sting radiating through my big toe fades.
There’s no particular reason that the contents of my room need to be hidden from the eye right now. I’m just doing my best to recreate the conditions I might face when we go into battle—when I might have to hide a bunch of the people around me, like I did when we invaded Balthazar’s mountain base.
Inanimate objects don’t take quite the same surge of energy that living beings do. To get the same effect, I don’t have to wearmyself out as much. So I poured way more of my power into each of the room’s furnishings than I did into my friends yesterday.
It was either that or try to vanish the entire mansion, and I don’t think anyone else living here would appreciate the latter.
I need to push myself farther than I did yesterday. Farther than I’ve dared with my fellow shadowbloods in all the time since I discovered I could use my talent for invisibility beyond my own body.
Maybe if I’d given my efforts yesterday my all instead of holding back just a little, Balthazar’s gambit with his ear-splitting device wouldn’t have shaken us out of concealment. Maybe we’d have stayed invisible to chase after him in the tunnels, and the younger shadowbloods wouldn’t have been able to confront us.
I swallow thickly and flex my fingers against the rumples of the blanket beneath me, checking for any unusual sensations.
Unfortunately, the other maybes involved could have dire consequences in the opposite direction. Which is why I’m conducting this experiment only on myself, not on any of the people who matter so much to me.
Our former captor seems determined to wreak havoc through the entire world. The next time we go up against him, we might not all survive.
But I’ll be damned if I lose anyone becauseIfucked up.
The experiment is awfully boring, though. I should have set my phone to a playlist of podcasts before I concealed it along with everything else.
I can’t see the screen now to select anything on it. Can’t see the TV mounted on the wall. The view beyond the window remains, since I didn’t mess with the walls themselves, but all I’ve got there is the incredibly dull “Palm trees casting shadows on the lawn” show.
I don’t even know exactly how long I’ve been running the experiment for, although I did have the foresight to set my phone to sound an alert every hour. The first one went off what might have been twenty minutes or forty ago, for all I can tell.
So far, I feel fine. That’s a good sign. I’ve never held myself invisible for this long before.
Of course, we already knew that the procedures Balthazar had Matteo carry out on us expanded our abilities. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a limit, only that it’s farther out than I’m used to.
