Page 11

“Okay.” I looked up at Rik. “I’ll probably need to feed hard when this is over.”

“We stand ready, my queen.”

I loved that he didn’t question me. He didn’t doubt me. None of my Blood did. They just waited for me to do what I felt called to do.

Holding Leonie’s hand, I led us to the center of the street where a narrow strip of garden divided the lanes. An ornamental tree grew in the center, its leaves curled and wilted from all the heat and flames I’d tossed at the thralls. But it was still alive. I stepped out of my shoes so I could feel the earth beneath me. Digging my toes into the mulch. Seeking the spark of living energy from the Mother. Grounding myself in Her earth.

Releasing Leonie’s hand, I lifted both wrists to my mouth and tore open my flesh. Blood streamed down my hands. Dripping from my fingers. Watering the earth.

“I make this willing sacrifice to Gaia, Great Mother of All. Long has the land beneath this ancient city hungered for its queen’s blood. Now I claim the City of Light for House Isador.”

A light breeze ruffled wisps of my hair, a kiss of the Mother’s breath upon my cheek.

“Morrigan, Phantom Queen of War, lend me your Shadow to shield this battle from all light. Let true darkness enclose this place.”

A thick curtain of shadow draped the street. Covering the buildings on either side. Muting the sound of sirens wavering in the distance.

Closing my eyes, I held my hands out to either side and let my blood drip and flow as it willed. My awareness sank into the earth, flowing soft and gentle like rain. Seeking the darkness beneath.

My father’s domain. Typhon, god of monsters.

Guillaume’s words from earlier echoed in my head. “Nothing like sewers and disease moldering in the vermin-filled streets.”

Indigo and ultraviolet streamers of energy curled through the labyrinth of tunnels and catacombs beneath the city. And yes, vermin. Normal animals like rats, of course, but also true creatures of darkness. Things that lived in the deepest, darkest subterranean realms beneath the city.

“Rise to my aid, Demons of Darkness.”

Demon wasn’t exactly the right term, though Typhon himself had named them. There was no religious connotation. They weren’t from hell. They weren’t like Helayna’s dark alfar. They were of this world. Known to humans across the millennia.

Gnomes. Gremlins. Shades. Cryptids. Things that lived deep in the earth.

Not human. Not Aima. Though all creatures came from the Mother of All.

Hollow, echoing knocks rumbled through the ground, silencing the chittering thralls. They’d been using the same places of darkness to hide, so they recognized that sound. They knew—and feared—the creatures responding to my call.

The first wave of rats swept out of the sewers and cellars. Covering the ground with their dark, lithe bodies. They might be small, but their sharp teeth glinted in the murk, and they far outnumbered the legion of thralls surrounding us.

Hesitant at first, darkness curled up out of the ground from the same cracks and spaces. Tentacles reached out. Testing for light and finding none, the shadows stretched out further. Flowing across the ground, thick and impenetrable. Shapes moved in that darkness, vague hints of arms and legs, flashes of eerily pale skin and large eyes. Arms too long, legs too short, stooped but stunningly fast.

“Never more will thralls find shelter in the darkness beneath Paris. This city is mine.”

My voice rang with power. I shaped my focus like a clawed hand, talons spread, and then I reached out into the nearest thrall to find its spirit. Fluttering birds hovered in each thrall, small and scared and trapped inside a putrid rotting corpse.

There were too many to free one by one. I’d be here until dawn.

Gathering my will, I swept those mental claws through the teeming horde, spinning in a slow circle as I pulled spirts free. As many as possible at once.

“Feeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaassssssssst!”

Darkness attacked. Rats swarmed. Tearing. Hacking. Screams and howls echoed through the night. First circle completed, I spun again. Reaching out with my power to slash through another wave of thralls. Pulling out their spirits. Thumping wings and bird cries echoed in the night. Crows roused from their slumber came to join the fight, tearing out more spirit birds for me. Releasing the tainted humans from their suffering.

So many.

Again.

A third pass.

My knees trembled. My fangs throbbed. Blood pressed to my lips and I tasted Leonie. I gripped her delicate wrist in my jaws and swept another pass through the quavering wall of thralls, pinned between the burning agony of my blood circle and the hungry darkness. Bodies stacked in hills and mountains around us. Covered in rats and the other creatures I’d called. Pale hands tearing at flesh. Feasting. Shadows wrapped around the corpses and pulled them away. Off the street. Back down into the caverns and tunnels beneath the city. A feast for later.