Dying Wish: A Novel of the Sentinel Wars Read online

  “Where did they come from?” asked Iain.

  “Everywhere. We need to take shelter here. More are on the way.”

  “More Synestryn or more Sentinels?”

  “Both,” said the woman in the green dress. “Serena, your mother is doing what she can to slow them down so we could warn you.”

  “Come inside,” said Serena.

  “There!” shouted another man. “They’re here!”

  And they were. Dozens of demons broke from the tree line in the distance and began their charge.

  “Inside,” Iain ordered Serena. “Lock the doors and windows.”

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  Iain grabbed the reins of a horse and mounted it. He gave her a look of regret. “I shouldn’t have waited.”

  “It was my decision.”

  “I should have changed your mind. When I get back—”

  She nodded. “Yes. Now go, and don’t you dare die.”

  Ten men formed a line and held back the advancing horde of demons. Another two stayed behind in the house, along with both women. Jackie watched the battle, unable to believe her eyes. This was the kind of thing that happened in movies, not in real life. And then one of the men fell and three slavering beasts descended on him, tearing his body into pieces. It took all of three seconds, and that’s when Jackie realized that this was not make-believe. This had really happened.

  Overhead, a harsh blue light streaked through the air. No one seemed to notice it—they were all too busy fighting. But Jackie saw it.

  The light hit the house. She braced herself for some kind of explosion, but none came. A second later, the light bounced back up into the night sky and sprang away, as if it had been attached to a rubber band. It was dimmer as it left.

  There were no screams from the house. The outline of the woman in the green dress was easily discernible on the porch. A man stood nearby, watching the far side of the house as if he expected more company.

  The men fighting finished off the last of the demons and retreated toward the house. They carried what was left of the dead man with them, their faces grim.

  Jackie raced ahead, unable to look at the dismembered parts without feeling sick.

  “Do you see any more?” Iain asked the man standing watch.

  “Not yet,” answered the woman. “But they’re coming. Gilda just sent me a message that they’re under attack as well. We’re not alone.”

  Iain frowned. “Where’s Serena?”

  “Inside. She’s safest there.”

  Iain pushed past them and went inside. Jackie saw him come to a dead stop. His body became unnaturally still. Then he took a slow, measured step forward and fell to his knees. A low moan of anguish vibrated out of him, getting louder as it went on. Pain echoed in his voice, quieting everyone around.

  “Iain?”

  Jackie knew how this ended. Serena died. Iain had already told her that much. But he hadn’t expressed how much he’d loved her, or how much her death had hurt him.

  She stepped through the crowd, unable to stop herself from getting close to him. She knew she couldn’t comfort him, but she also couldn’t simply stand there and do nothing but listen to his pain.

  She saw the fiery mass of curls lying on the floor of the kitchen, next to a small puddle of fabric—the same fabric Serena had been wearing. Both the hair and the fabric had been cut cleanly away, leaving a slight singeing around the edges.

  “Where is she?” asked the woman.

  “Gone,” said Iain, his voice tight with emotion.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can’t feel her anymore. There’s just…emptiness where she used to be.”

  The group’s faces told Jackie what that meant. Once the shock faded, grief took over. A heavy sadness hung in the air.

  “What happened to her?” asked one of the men.

  “She went to fight. You know how she is,” said the woman as if trying to convince herself.

  “No,” said Iain, rising to his feet. He tucked a lock of hair into his pocket and drew his sword. Gone were his smile and the single dimple she’d seen earlier. All that was left was a cold, dark anger that seemed to snuff the light from his eyes. “She’s dead. They killed her. And now I’m going to make them pay.”

  This was the man she recognized—this harder, darker version of Iain. He’d been born that night—the night the woman he loved died.

  Sympathy for him gathered inside her chest. He wasn’t the kind of man who would want pity, but it was hard not to feel something for his loss.

  She closed her eyes to block out the sight of his suffering, and when she opened them again, she was back inside the truck. Iain’s hand was still tucked inside the waistband of her slacks, and he’d grown even paler.

  Jackie had seen enough death for one night. She was not going to witness Iain’s as well. Whatever magic she now had, it was time for her to find it and fix him. Fast.

  Chapter 9

  The monsters wouldn’t let Beth die. She was so weak, she fluttered in and out of consciousness, sometimes waking to find herself in a different place than when she’d passed out. This time when she woke, there was a brick building towering over her. She could smell garbage nearby, as well as the oily stench of exhaust fumes.

  Beth knew what was coming, but she was too tired to be afraid. She simply didn’t care anymore what they did to her as long as they let her die. Maybe this time the thing that fed on her blood would take too much and end it, giving her peace.

  She couldn’t remember her life before the caves, before the monsters. It seemed so distant and unreal, she questioned whether it had ever existed outside of her dreams.

  A clawed hand gripped her by the arm and hauled her to her feet. She didn’t fight. There was no point in fighting. At first she’d tried, hoping she could get away, and later she’d tried, hoping they’d kill her. Neither had worked, and she only ended up weaker and sicker than before.

  Acceptance was easier. Shut down. Go away to a quiet, still place where fear and pain could not reach her.

  Your blood is the key to your escape.

  The phrase had been going through her mind for a long time now, resonating as if she should know what the creature had meant. He’d seemed genuine, though she had no idea why he’d want to help her escape when that would mean his meal ticket would vanish. He’d said other things that night, shaking her so she’d pay attention, but she’d been so weak and afraid, she hadn’t been able to hold on to more than those few words.

  The monsters used her for her blood. They’d also used her for other things, but her blood was the root cause of her captivity. If it hadn’t been for her dirty blood, the creature growing in her belly would never have sparked to life.

  She didn’t know what it was she carried—human or something else—but she wanted it out.

  The demon that had brought her here held her on her feet. Its face was vaguely human, but more long and angular. There were scales covering its head and reaching down around its eyes. Below that was bluish skin.

  She’d seen this thing before. It was one of the demons under Zillah’s command.

  A screaming rush of hatred lanced through her at the mere thought of his name. It was his child she carried, and he’d nearly killed her putting it there. The violence raging inside of him could be caused only by pure evil, and if she could have one wish granted, it would be to see his eyes fixed in death, his mouth gaping open from screaming in pain.

  The demon holding her up sniffed the air as though it had smelled something wrong. It pushed her down onto a stack of wooden pallets and hissed out a barely understandable, “Stay.”

  Beth swayed as it left. Her head spun, but that was nothing new. Being alone outside, however, was a novelty.

  She looked around. It was some kind of building with several big doors for trucks. The lights on the outside had been smashed, and the pavement was cracked and caked with dead weeds. There was a high chain-link fence surrounding the
area, mocking her for her inability to scale it. She could hear traffic passing by not far away, but saw no headlights.

  She tried to stand. It took three tries, but she managed to get to her feet and not fall over.

  The fence was only a few feet away. If she could get over it, maybe she could escape. And if she fell off, then the fall might kill her.

  It was a win-win situation as far as she was concerned.

  Beth staggered forward a few feet. She lost her balance and slammed down into the concrete, skinning her hands. Blood seeped from her skin, and she stared at it, knowing what it would mean.

  Every time she bled, demons came running. It was like they could smell it and rushed in for a bite.

  She was too weak to fight them off. It was easier just to fall to her side and let them take what they wanted.

  The pavement was cold against her cheek. Her matted hair fell across her eyes, blocking out her sight. She didn’t have the strength to push the grimy strands away, and if she did, she wouldn’t like what she saw coming for her.

  Beth waited for the attack, for the searing pain of teeth digging into her flesh. When the seconds passed and no demons came, she became confused.

  The sound of a fight erupted not far away. She gathered her strength enough to lift her head, and saw the demon that had brought her here fighting a man. A gleam of metal flashed between them, but in the deep shadows, that’s all she could see.

  If ever there was a chance for her to escape, this was it.

  Beth forced herself to crawl on her hands and knees toward the fence. It seemed impossibly far away, but she had to try.

  She didn’t know if she’d been brought here to feed the man and something had gone wrong, or if he’d simply stumbled upon them, but she wasn’t going to wait around to find out.

  The grunts and the ringing of metal continued to sound behind her. She reached the fence and gripped the cold metal, pulling herself up.

  Her muscles trembled with the effort of simply standing. She had no idea how she was going to climb up all eight feet.

  Beth shoved her bare foot into an opening and pushed her body up with everything she had. Sweat broke out on her skin, chilling her. The metal bit into her flesh, but pain was nothing new. She could take the pain as long as her body didn’t give out.

  She rose a few inches, found another foothold, and did it again. After what seemed like an hour, she looked down. She was less than two feet off the ground, with so much more to go, she wanted to give up.

  The sounds of fighting stopped suddenly, and she cast a quick glance over her shoulder. The demon was crouched over the man, drinking his blood.

  A futile sense of loss filled her. The man wouldn’t live. Unless he was special like the other men the demons kept for blood, he’d be used up and thrown away.

  She couldn’t save him. All she could do was try to save herself.

  Her fingers slipped on the wire, making her yelp. She barely caught herself before she fell. A small bit of skin had been ripped away in the slip, making her finger slick with blood.

  Footsteps sounded behind her, too fast to be human. She looked and saw the demon headed straight for her, its eyes glowing an angry green, its teeth coated in the man’s blood.

  Fear gave her a burst of strength. She scrambled up. Her hand settled on the top bar, and then her body was ripped away from the fence as the demon jerked her down.

  She was crushed under the weight of failure. The air was squeezed from her lungs. Spots formed in her vision, and the world went sideways. She could see the man on the ground, lying in the shadows. The gleam of his leather coat shifted, as if he’d moved.

  Not that it mattered. He was getting farther and farther away with every passing second as the demon sprinted, carrying her.

  She didn’t know what her punishment would be for trying to escape, but it didn’t really matter. They couldn’t do anything else to hurt her now. She was drifting off into her quiet place where no pain or fear could reach her. With any luck, she’d stay there until they killed her.

  Ronan woke up, wondering why he was still alive. The demon had been guzzling down his blood so fast Ronan was certain it had intended to drain him dry.

  He closed his wounds and gathered up the remnants of poison in his bloodstream from the demon’s saliva, forced it out through his own saliva glands, and spat it onto the ground.

  Hunger roared inside of him, but that he could handle. There was something more important here. Something vital his spinning head couldn’t seem to recall.

  Blood. Powerful blood. He’d smelled it before—a faint hint of it in the air. That’s why he’d come. He could still smell it now, though not as strongly as before.

  He pushed to his feet, gathering up his sword from the pavement. He’d only gotten in one good hit on that demon, and its scales had protected it completely. The fact that he’d gone into combat weak and starving hadn’t done his fighting technique much good.

  Still, he couldn’t simply walk away and leave the woman in the hands of that demon without doing something.

  The scent of her blood made his hunger that much worse. He swore he could almost taste her in the air.

  His nose drew him to the fence she’d been climbing. There, clinging to the cold metal, were small smears of her blood. He touched it with his finger and brought it to his tongue.

  Power lingered in that small taste, but along with it was the taint of demon blood, and something else he knew but couldn’t place.

  Ronan spat the tainted blood from his mouth and headed toward his van.

  Headlights bobbed as another vehicle pulled in through the open gate. Ronan’s first thought was that whoever was there might be blooded and able to ease his hunger. His second thought was that it could be human security coming to take him to jail for trespassing. As weak as he was, he wasn’t sure he could fight off any attempts to capture him.

  Ronan stumbled toward his van, holding his aching ribs. Before he’d made it the whole distance, a man got out of the other car and headed toward him in a rush.

  Headlights hit the side of his face, and Ronan instantly recognized him as a fellow Sanguinar. “Connal. What are you doing here?”

  There was a flicker of hesitation before he answered. “I should be asking you that. What happened?”

  “I smelled blood. It led me here.”

  “Me, too. Here, let me help you.” Connal shoved his shoulder under Ronan’s arm and helped him to his van.

  “There was a woman here. I think she was the bait in some kind of trap,” said Ronan.

  “I’m sure you’re right. You must be more cautious in the future.”

  Ronan slumped into his seat. “I need blood.”

  Connal took a sudden step back. “I’m sorry, brother. I can’t help you. I’m too weak.”

  He didn’t look weak, but Ronan said nothing, simply nodded his understanding. “Go. I’ll be fine.”

  “I could drive you somewhere, perhaps to one of the Gerai.”

  Ronan shook his head, declining the offer. He had too much to think about, and Connal had not yet learned the value of silence.

  “The woman is gone, then?” he asked.

  “Carried away by a demon. It was moving too fast to track.”

  Bitter regret pinched Connal’s mouth. “I’ll be on my way. Unless you have some other need of me?”

  “No. Go. Thank you for stopping.”

  Connal turned and left, hurrying back to his vehicle as if demons were snapping at his heels.

  Ronan didn’t have time to puzzle out why Connal was in such a hurry. He needed to find this woman, but first, he needed to hunt and regain his strength. There was a nightclub not far from here that he frequented. Several blooded women went there regularly, and each one of them was more than willing to spend a bit of time alone with him. He took as much blood as was safe, and left them with memories of an incredible sexual encounter. The symbiotic relationship worked for both sides, and even if it hadn’t, Ronan was
desperate.

  As he got behind the wheel, he realized what it was about her blood he couldn’t put his finger on. There was an extra spark of power lingering within her, hiding beneath the Synestryn taint. Not only was she blooded, but she was pregnant, and the child she carried was also blooded. Whoever she was, she was capable of carrying a Synestryn child.

  She had to be found. Immediately. And if he couldn’t get her out of the hands of the demons, then he had to find a way to kill her before her offspring was full-term.

  Jackie had no idea what she was doing, but she was smart. She could figure out how to tap into whatever magic Iain housed and use it to save him. Her sisters and the other women like them did it all the time. How hard could it possibly be?

  She closed her eyes and focused on the luceria around her throat—the link to the power inside of Iain. Several of the scars around her neck were numb, due to severed nerve endings, but she had enough feeling to sense the necklace there, close to her skin. It vibrated, faster than Iain’s pulse, but in time with it. It was warm, and seemed to be heating more with each passing second.

  The vibrations sped, and a tingling formed along the inside of Jackie’s veins. There was a thrumming in her chest, and a resonant kind of energy hovering all around her. It sparked along her skin, especially where Iain’s fingers grazed her stomach.

  She let the tingles enter her, gathering them up into a bundle. That bundle grew until it filled her, spilling out so that she was sure the trucker across the way could see it. Bright, throbbing heat beat against the air and shook the windows. The power continued to swell, but did nothing else. She didn’t know how to make it do anything.

  “Stop the poison,” she ordered it, but nothing happened. Speaking out loud did no good.

  The power started to become uncomfortable as it grew, bouncing around her insides until it was sparking off bones and organs. She tried to stop it, but that did nothing to slow the increasing strain she was feeling. More energy filtered into her through the luceria, and she could find no way to turn off the flow.

  The bench seat beneath them trembled, and she heard change rattling in a cup holder. The keys dangling from the ignition jangled. Her hair stood on end, and there was a faint crackling of static electricity in the air.