“I think she’d be proud of you now,” I told him.
He smiled, leaning down to plant a soft kiss on my mouth. “She’d have liked you. She was also stubborn and persistent.”
“Hey!” I smacked his arm and laughed, but the laughter died in my throat when a scream pierced the air.
Gage and I bolted out onto the main pathway to find Indigo and the Angel Gang surrounded by a group of Shades. Gage immediately yanked me behind a giant gravestone. We peeked around the edges to see what was happening.
“This is our turf, Lumens!” one of the Shades hissed. “Go back to wherever you came from, now.”
Dash’s and Jacob’s wings snapped out and arched aggressively in the air as Drea pulled a longsword from the tattoo on her arm. Marlow already stood at the ready with an axe gripped in each hand.
I had no idea if the Shades recognized Indigo as one of their own, but Jacob and Dash both shifted so she was concealed behind their large white and gray feathered wings as the Shades stepped closer, brandishing weapons of their own.
I breathed a little sigh of relief, knowing that my friends had her back.
“We have business in town and will be leaving only when it’s complete,” Drea told them calmly.
There were over half a dozen Shades, but we had just as many Lumens. If a fight broke out, it would be evenly matched. But I hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
With a scream of fury, one of the Shades ran at Drea and the rest of them followed suit. The clash of weapons ripped through the cemetery, and I gasped.
Okay, I guess there was going to be a fight.
Gage and I shared a look and then both pulled our own weapons, him from the sheath on his back and me from my forearm, before retraining our focus on the growing battle in front of us.
We still hadn’t been seen, so we could easily sneak up from behind and surprise the Shades.
“Let’s—” I turned to tell Gage something but stopped when I noticed he was staring transfixed at the swollen moon. His eyes… their once arresting green was threaded through with gold. What the…?
“Gage!” I hissed and shook him by the shoulders.
He growled, low in his throat, and looked at me. For a second it was as if he didn’t know me, then the yellow retreated, and it was green again.
“Tate,” he breathed, shaking his head as if trying to dislodge his thoughts.
“What was that?” I asked, completely in shock by the way he’d not seemed himself.
“Incoming!” Indigo yelled, and I spun, raising my weapon just as a Shade clashed his sword into mine.
There goes our element of surprise.
Throwing Gage’s weird little, yellow-eyed freakiness from my mind, I fought the Shade.
Clack-clack-clack, our swords collided as I blocked every blow. I’d killed demons before, but Shades were different—could I kill a Shade? I knew they weren’t all bad… this guy looked only a few years older than me. As I fought the dude, I snuck peeks around when I could to make sure my friends were still faring okay.
I lost track of Drea, but Dash was battling two Shades at the same time, using his wings to deflect a blow from one opponent while he hammered the other with an uppercut. Jacob was fighting a Shade with black shadow wings up in the air above the group. And Marlow and Indigo stood back to back as they deflected and delivered their own strikes. If the Shades didn’t know Indigo was one of their own before, they certainly did now, because the dark-bladed shadow sword she fought with, much like the one Gage used to have, definitely gave her away.
I was just about to stick the Shade I was battling in the gut when Gage spoke behind me. “Thomas? Is that you?”
The dude I was fighting faltered, backing up as he lowered his weapon, and looked at Gage for the first time.
“Gage Alston?” the guy yelled, and the fighting around us halted. “We heard you were dead.”
Gage shrugged. “Long story.”
“What are you doing with a bunch of Lumens?” a girl growled from behind me, and I turned to see that she and Drea had swords at each other’s throats. My heart hammered in my chest, refusing to calm down.
“An even longer story,” Gage responded. “We will be gone in a few hours. We cool? Let us pass for old times’ sake?” He winked at the girl.
