She could conceal her chi and pretend she was an earth witch, but even humans could tell she was different.
“I’ll sort it, don’t worry.” Her smile was forced, tight. “I promise.”
Chapter6
Xander
Xander inhaled, savouring the smoke before exhaling it out his nose. He dropped his gaze to the ground, the cobbled stone dark and wet beneath his thick leather boots.
“Freshy?” Axel asked, his own cigarette glowing a bright orange at the tip.
Xander nodded, not wanting to vocalise the spirit’s existence. The newly dead liked to stick around, moving in familiar circuits until they eventually faded or walked into the white light. At least, he assumed it was white, he had never seen it for himself.
“That sucks,” he muttered, stubbing the cigarette out on the wall before balling it up in his palm. “You not figured out a repellent yet?”
Xander remained silent, even as his mind raced with images of a black witch with bronzed brown skin and enchanting amber eyes. He wasn’t surprised that spirits seemed to disappear when she was around, not when her magic used blood and death as its base.Sythe grunted, his knee bent with his foot flat against the opposite wall. “You guys done? I’m bored.”
“Then go back inside,” Xander said. “We’re not keeping you out here.”
Sythe took out a small dagger and began spinning it in the air. “Riley and Alice are dancing.” The music from The Blood Bar echoed, quieter through the closed door.
“You’re just jealous,” Axel chuckled.
Sythe sneered. “Don’t lie and say you’re not.”
Xander laughed, unable to control the hollow sound. They were all jealous, so much so it physically hurt to see the love and affection that was once out of their reach.
When they were children they were warned that strong emotions could force them to shift, and each time they would lose a part of themselves to their beasts. It was something they had accepted a long time ago, that they could never love, and the inevitable that one day they wouldn’t come back from a shift at all. And then there was only one option, unless they wanted to be monsters forever.
Except that knowledge had been an understatement, and the truth was arguably worse. They could shift without repercussions, they could fall in love and find their soulmate as their leader, Riley had. But it was no longer their own beasts they feared, it was the possibility if they couldn’t find their own soulmates within their first one-hundred years, they would become monsters permanently, and be forced down in to The Nether to be slaves to the same man who had cursed them.
Either way it was bullshit.
All the guardians were so happy that Riley had found the person that made his heart beat, but it was still something that the rest of them needed to adjust to. The idea of being soulbound, mated to another person was terrifying when they were already bound to their beasts. Yet Riley had risked everything for his witch.
“Fuck off, all of you,” Sythe muttered, his lip lifted in to a snarl. “You’re all a bunch of…” His words cut off, eyes widening as Xander felt the same ripple of awareness across his chi.
“Bloody hell!” Axel shouted, head swinging towards the mouth of the alley. “Is that what I think it is?”
Xander moved before the thought even registered, his instincts taking him towards the quiet late night road. Headlights flared, only for a brief second before the car passed further into the city, but it was enough to illuminate the woman who stood across the street.
“Xee, you see that?” Sythe said, coming to a stop beside Xander.
“What the fuck!” Axel cursed, all three of them staring across the short distance to the old woman who seemed to be waiting. She was barely five-foot, her well-worn walking stick forgotten at her feet as she stood at an awkward angle, her left foot bent as if broken. “She’s… not right,” he continued.
Xee grunted, the awareness of the Shadow-Veyn like sharp prickles across his senses. A shadow, not created by the streetlights circled around her, rolling up from the pavement like a darkened wave before it solidified into a rat-like creature. Bone was exposed through its black fur, skull and ribs a splash of white as smoke drifted out its nostrils.
Shadow-Veyn were nightmarish creatures not from their realm. They were wild in nature, attacking and feeding just as any animal would, but they could also be heavily influenced by Daemons, such as the one who currently used the woman as a puppet.
“Isn’t this the third possession this month?” Sythe asked, fist gripped around his small blade. “You would think the fuckers would stop with this creepy shit now that they’re free.”
The older woman rolled her shoulders, the click, click, click of her bones loud enough to carry across the distance. Her shawl looked hand-knitted, not that any of them had any experience with knitted garments. It hung loosely from her arm exposing the floral shirt beneath, barely thick enough to protect her from the bitter wind that whipped at her neatly pinned white hair. She made no move towards them, but nor did she move away as the rat sunk back into the pavement.
“Leave it,” Xander said as the Shadow-Veyn shot in the opposite direction. The rat was a classification A, the least dangerous of all the creatures that had escaped their prison from The Nether. It wasn’t worth their time compared to the woman. Rats, named because of their long tails and snouts were scavengers and spies compared to the hounds who hunted and feasted on the general populace. The increase of disappearances was nothing in a city of millions, but the authorities were going to notice soon enough when more corpses turned up torn to shreds and pumped full of venom.
“Let her go,” Xander demanded as he slowly approached, his brothers tight on his heels. He had no weapons, but that didn’t mean he was unprepared. The Guardians were trained in killing Daemons, it was the sole reason of their existence, the reason for their curse.
As children they were forced to receive their beasts, sharing their soul with a monster not too different from the Shadow-Veyn they were trained to slaughter. It made them more resilient, stronger and fast enough to take down the men who were once druids, once their ancestors.
