“Sisters,” she murmured, Kay and Emma whispering the word with her.
Their Shadows swelled, joining and growing into a flood, pouring out over the basement museum. The blast swept away their misty defensive wall, the ravens from the air, the flying shuriken, and the crawling insects.
Midnight-blue, mulberry-red, and jade-green Shadows swirled like a tornado around them as they stood.
Side by side, they stepped out from behind the altar. Their hands fell apart, but they no longer needed that physical anchor. Their Shadows flew free in wild synergy.
They’d formed a mixed triad. Not built on hours of routine and exercises but on trust and love and loyalty. Their blood was offered freely, ten times more powerful than any sacrifice.
Riley wasn’t a Guardian, but she didn’t need to be. She was their Healer.
She lifted her hands. Her Shadows were heavy and almost tangible—solid, like Gordon’s had been—as she threw them out toward the blood Shadows wrapped around Zach’s and James’s throats.
Kay’s and Emma’s Shadows flooded through her with a rush of power as she ripped the sticky, clinging tendrils of the toxic Shadows away from the two men, hardly feeling the corrosive burn as the Shadows fought back.
Kay and Emma stood at her side, throwing their strength into the battle, Shadows layered on Shadows. With one last concerted heave, they ripped the last blood Shadows out of the men they loved and flung them away.
The blood Shadows whipped through the air, a tornado of churning darkness, and then stilled. For a moment, they hovered, a nightmare cloud, dark and menacing in the air above.
And then, suddenly, they sped back toward Diedre in a violent backlash.
Diedre screamed, falling to her knees beside Gordon, surrounded by a maelstrom of dark Shadows. Blood poured from her nose, and she wiped it with the back of her hand before reaching out to her leader for help, stretching out to grip his shirt.
Whether it was the blood Diedre inadvertently offered or the Shadows embedded in the blade that called to their own, Riley couldn’t tell. But the surging blood Shadow fragments in the air tore through the tiny space toward Gordon and the dagger he held.
He recoiled violently, flinging the dagger away as if it burned. It soared through the air and crashed against the stone wall where it smashed into hundreds of tiny pieces.
Riley watched it happen as if in slow motion. The turning blade, arcing through the air. The violence of its destruction against the stone wall. And then sudden blinding awareness of what would happen next.
“Down!” She threw herself toward Kay and Emma, and they collapsed in a pile on the floor as Zach and James flung themselves down on top of them, their Shadows boiling out to cover them on reflex—a thick blanket of protection.
Only Gordon was standing when thousands of years of blood sacrifice and dark Shadows exploded from the blade.
Cruel visions raged through the air, vengeful and insane. Tangible Shadows filled with power and death curled around him. Gordon put his hands up as if to ward them off even as they flooded through him. But it was too much for him. Too violent and too consuming.
He extended his Shadows too fast, too out of control. With a silent explosion, they detonated into a multitude of flying splinters, shattering the cloud of blood Shadows as they flew.
Gordon collapsed to his knees with an animalistic grunt, the last of his Shadows streaming out beyond his reach, and then slowly fell forward onto the stone floor. And then there was silence.
Riley unfurled a ribbon of Shadow, reaching for James as they waited, stunned, for long seconds. Their panted breaths were the only sound as Gordon’s raven-black Shadows slowly drifted apart, fragmenting like smoke in the wind. Until, finally, the centuries of peace and prayers slowly rolled back through the ancient crypt once more.
Gordon had destroyed himself. And taken the blood Shadows with him.
Riley pushed herself up, letting go of the Shadows that had helped to cover and protect them and keeping only her connection to James. He rolled off of Zach, who was half on top of Emma. Kay sat up slowly, her expression wary. All of them still half waiting for the next attack.
It never came. Diedre crawled to Gordon, who lay stretched out on the tile floor. And then wrapped her arms around her bent knees and cried.
Riley gingerly got to her feet, ignoring the way her body ached, and stepped closer to where Gordon lay. He was a monster. But she was still a Healer.
James staggered to his feet. His Shadows swirled comfortingly around her, but his hand was trembling as he slid it into hers.
Together they made their way to where the man who had caused them so much pain lay still on the ground. But, before they reached Gordon’s side, she knew there would be no chance of saving him. There was not even an echo of Shadow left inside him.
She knelt to press her fingers into Gordon’s neck just to be completely certain before she met their eyes and told them what they already knew. “His heart stopped.”
ChapterTwenty-Six
Darkness.Agony. Something thick and viscous choked her as she fought for breath. Elizabeth opened her eyes, goose bumps rising along her arms.
