Dreven ignores our exchange, his gaze fixed on the distant harbour where the fishing boats used to bob up and down back in the day. Now it is abandoned. “What kind of hungry?”
“The kind that doesn’t belong,” Voren says, his pale eyes losing focus as he listens to his spectral network. “It consumes them. Not just their energy. It erases them. It’s messy.”
“Messy is my middle name.” This is what I’ve missed. A puzzle to unravel, a force to push against. “Sounds infinitely more entertaining than staring at a sealed crack in the ground. What do you say, Dre? Fancy a trip to the seaside?”
He gives me a long, considering look, probably weighing the pros and cons of letting me off my leash. “Fine. But you will not engage without a plan.”
I laugh, a real, unrestrained bark of a laugh. “A plan? Where’s the fun in that? The best chaos is spontaneous.” Before he can argue, I give a jaunty salute. “Race you.”
With a thought, I let myself fall, dissolving into a flicker of red-gold energy that streaks through the rain-slicked air towards the smell of salt, fish, and devoured souls.
I re-form on a slick, rotting pier, the wood groaning under my boots. The air here is thick, not just with thestench of brine and decay, but with a gnawing emptiness. Voren was right. This isn’t the clean departure of a soul moving on; it’s a messy, violent erasure. It’s like a hole has been chewed through the local spiritual ecosystem.
A shadow detaches itself from a pile of rusted lobster pots, and Dreven is there, his face a mask of distaste. “Subtle, Dastian.”
“Subtlety is for people with no other good qualities,” I retort, my gaze sweeping the dilapidated warehouses. “Where’s our ghost-whisperer?”
Voren appears at the end of the pier, a shimmer of cold mist in the rain. He doesn’t look at us. His focus is on something only he can see. “They’re terrified,” he murmurs. “It’s coming from the water. It has no name they know, only a hunger. It leaves nothing behind. Not even a memory.”
“Ondros?” I ask with a frown.
Voren shakes his head. “He isn’t here.”
I stare out over the sea, wondering what else could lurk in the depths other than the Water god. “So, something old or something new?”
“Old,” Dreven says. “But not our target. The recent upheaval has awoken the beast.”
“How do we get it to go back to sleep?”
He shrugs as if it isn’t his problem. Fair enough. It isn’t.
It is, however, Nyssa’s problem if this thing is going to make a menace of itself. She is going to have to fight this thing, probably on her own, because she won’t ask for help. Do not get me started on those Order of the Veil Guardians being any help whatsoever. They are useless, spineless dicks who hide behind the slayer and take all the credit. Normally, I’m not a huge fan of slayers, for a reason, but this one has piqued my interest beyond wanting to destroy her and her lineage, so the slayer line ends with her. Iactually find her quite charming, in a rough and ready way that makes my cock hard. She will be a tough nut to crack, but when she does… I sigh and try not to think about our worlds colliding in that way.
“Your obsession is showing,” Voren says, snapping me out of sexy thoughts. He’s watching me with those pale, knowing eyes of his. “First Dreven, now you. What is it about this particular mortal that has you both acting like idiots?”
“She’s not boring,” I say, which is the highest compliment I can give. “And she stabbed a goddess in the face. That earns a certain amount of respect, even from me.”
“So, you will help her?” Dreven asks, his voice cutting through the damp air. “You will interfere?”
“If it keeps her breathing.”
“Since when did that bother you?” Voren asks.
“Since it’s her.”
Voren smirks, but he doesn’t comment. He doesn’t need to. The fact of the matter is, we need her whether we like it or not, that is something we need to accept. If she dies cleaning up the local pests, we are all doomed, and I don’t say that lightly.
Chapter 9
Nyssa
The rain plasters my hair to my skull as I march through the winding streets of Blackfen Edge. Three gods. Dreven, Dastian, and some bloke named Voren who talks to ghosts and has a questionable taste in coats. It sounds like the setup for a terrible joke. My life has become a terrible joke.
For a fleeting, tempting moment, I consider keeping everything to myself and handling it my way. But that’s not how the Order works. It’s not howIwork. I’m a part of a chain of command, a cog in a machine that has kept the world from falling into darkness for generations. Loyalty is drilled into us from birth. I report the facts, no matter how insane they sound.
I reach the unassuming facade of O’Malley’s Antiquarian Books, its green paint peeling and its windows filled with dusty, leather-bound tomes. Pushing open the heavy oak door, the tinkle of a small brass bell announces my arrival. The familiar scent of old paper, beeswax, and dried herbs wraps around me like a blanket. It’s the scent oforder, of history, of everything I’m supposed to trust. Taking a deep breath, I head for the back room and open the secret door that leads into an underground chamber, ready to face the inquisition.
The stone steps spiral down into the cool, still air of the chamber. Three figures are seated at the long, dark-wood table that dominates the room. Cormac, Taye, and Finnian. The Triumvirate. The Guardians of the Veil. Cormac, with his severe face and beard like iron filings, gestures to the empty chair opposite them.
