Everlost (The Night Watchmen Series Book 3) (8 page)

ETHRYEAL CITY IS EXACTLY HOW WE LEFT IT.

The golden-orbed sun slides up the side of the stark white buildings, its beams of bright light streaking through the city like fingers trying to rouse the citizens from sleep. The rays reach to the canal, gently passing over, stirring it awake until it glitters like a sea of turquoise gems. The early morning sounds of the Night Watchmen News broadcasted on the Jumbotron in City Square murmur down every street and through every alleyway, ensuring everyone knows I’m still on the loose.

I don’t know what I expected to see. Chaos? Destruction? Darkness? Because that’s what I’ve felt for so long now. So much so, that I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to feel anything other than that again.

It’s in my marrow now. In every cell, which bursts every time I think about all the wrongs that have happened with no justification in sight.

Maybe I thought—or maybe I had hoped—that the members of our Coven would finally see who Clara really is when we were wrongly accused in court that day. That they’d see the layers I peeled from her face when I stood up against her, exposing the monster underneath. The same kind of monster that lurks under your bed, hides in your closet, or stands behind the shower curtain, just waiting for you to snatch it back.

I wanted them to finally see the corruption in the Priesthood. The innocent blood spilled on their behalf that fills every hollow promise in their words. And maybe I wished they would finally fight back. Maybe I wished the beauty of this place had been unmasked the moment Clara and the rest of the Priesthood showed who they really were, and I’d return to something darker. Emptier.

But there isn’t a single thing out of place.

They continue to walk in their fancy clothes with their eyes pointed in whatever direction their heading, oblivious to the slow, internal destruction of our government. They continue to ignore the news that’s so blatantly telling them that we’re in the midst of the biggest civil war our kind has ever seen. Those words are plumes of smoke they pass through. Those statues of the Divine they walk by, the leaders who carry the meaning of this Coven, could be garbage cans for all they care.

And yet, I’m not surprised.

The mind, most of the time, only sees what it wants us to see. Only recognizes inconveniences, when it’s convenient. How can they really pay attention when the crimson tears of our people have not yet touched the city limits? When the devastation of losing everything hasn’t clawed its way through the boundaries of what Clara now calls her city.

She’s keeping the peace by isolating the destruction within the lower ranks. By ensuring the lives lost are only with those who don’t matter in her eyes. But those beneath, those who pour sweat and endure grievances day in and day out to keep this city running, those are the ones who matter most.

And no one cares.

At this point, a Defect has more sympathy than the Night Watchmen. They have become slaves of a war. A war in which they can’t even pick the side they want to fight on. These men and woman are sent to slaughter, night after night, so that the rest of our kind can live in oblivious peace.

I’d rather die. I’d rather bleed out, right here for all to see.

The woman’s monotonous voice, who broadcasts ninety-nine percent of the news to our kind, spreads like an airborne pathogen over the vast wave of people crowding the vendors in City Square. She’s dishing out a list of members within the Coven who are being summoned to the city, which transmits throughout our nation on a special channel only Primevals receive. The bottom of the screen reports the names of the growing number of Watchmen who have either perished or been taken by the hands of the Darkyn Coven.

Things are rapidly growing worse.

And still, life carries on as if it weren’t.

Weldon looks back at me from just inside the shadow we’re standing in. “This is as close as I could get us.” We’re standing next to a tree that’s about two hundred meters away from the Military Compound. “Once we step out of the shadow, we’ll be on Clara’s territory. We have to get in and get out.”

“I know,” I whisper back, watching the countless men and women walking past.

“No matter what, we head straight for the general’s room. Sprint for the compound. If anything happens and we’re split up, meet on the rooftop? Okay?”

I nod, ignoring the fact that my heart’s bouncing all around my ribcage, and shut off my emotions. It’s time for business, and this is the only way I can guarantee I won’t make a mistake due to my heart thinking for my brain. I reach behind me, pull out a flux for each of us, and hand him one.

He takes it, inhales and exhales, and then says, “Here goes nothing.”

The moment his foot crosses into Ethryeal City, a high-pitched alarm sounds from somewhere above the Courthouse. Dread slams into me.

They warded the entire city against us.

Elites storm out from every corner of the city with rifles pressed against their chests. Weldon grabs my hand and pulls me in a full-on sprint, leaving no chance of turning back. I feel the cloaking spell flickering in and out as Elite Witches cast counter spells meant to drop any kind of camouflage.

Jaxen’s terror bleeds into me, sending a sickening chill down my back. The earth could swallow me whole right here and now. It should, because that would probably be an easier death than what Clara could invent for me.

“Turn back!”
Jaxen orders, but his words falter. His command is empty.

He already knows. He knows, because he knows what he’d do. I’m not coming back. Not until I’ve done what I came to do.

My heart’s pounding harder than it ever has before as I focus on my breathing, pushing the oxygen to my muscles so I can keep up with Weldon. He’s dodging and weaving through the passing Primevals. I try to keep his pace, shutting everything out except for the mission.

“There they are!” I hear someone shout behind us.

“It’s the Everlasting!” another person shouts.

Screams erupt and spread like wildfire as the Elites nearby try to close in on us. Red dots flash across Weldon’s back in a deadly dance.

A sniper, trying to secure a shot.

Horror and fear grasp a hold of my limbs like sticky fingers trying to slow me down, but I shove it away. I can already feel the red ghosts sliding across my back, whispering words of an untimely death. Saying a quick spell to shield myself, I extend it out towards Weldon, praying that it’s enough to get us into the building.

Keep going,
I tell myself, shutting out the fear and the screams, and all the thoughts scattering like crazed maniacs inside my brain.

I start zigzagging, yelling at Weldon to do the same as we approach the Military Compound. Citizens scatter under the orders of the Elites moving in on us. Some drop to the ground, covering their heads.

We aren’t going to make it. Not without a fight.

A gunshot goes off, and Weldon stumbles forward, trying to catch himself. Blood sprays out from his calf. Another goes off, and searing pain ignites the back of my arm.

“Faye!”
Jaxen shouts in my mind.
“Their bullets are spelled!”

There’s no time to think. No time to respond. Another and another and another sound off, coming from all angles, and like an instinct ingrained in me, I tug on all the energy around me, and then throw it back out as far and as wide as I can, knocking back the Elites closest to us.

Just enough to get us to the door.

Weldon throws his flux toward the Elite on the right. I’m a second behind him, aiming mine toward the Elite on the left. Both fluxes land in the center of their foreheads, leaving their bodies sliding down the glass of the entrance. We don’t stop to retrieve our weapons.

I don’t stop to mourn the fact that I just killed one of my own. Without blinking.

Once inside, the lady behind the desk scrambles backward, screaming as we move toward her and take station behind the steel desk. Eleven Elites storm down the stairs to the right. Another handful fill the hallway toward the elevator. I manifest two semi-automatic pistols from my backpack, handing one to Weldon when he looks over at me.

We’re on the same wavelength now, fighting like we’ve done countless times before in simulation after simulation. Words are spoken through our exchanged glances. He winces when he crawls over to the next desk and shoves it toward the one I’m behind, building our barricade.

“You have to get the bullets out, Faye,”
Jaxen says as calmly as he can. Worry and fear are embedded in his tone.

“I know. I’ve got this. Don’t worry,”
I say, willing him to believe me.

“Let me fix it,” I say to Weldon when he crawls back over to me. I hold my hand over his calf and say a quick healing spell, but it doesn’t work. He was shot with the very same bullet that’s on my necklace back with Jezi. It’s cursed, created to harm any and every foe that one of our own might stumble upon. Even demons.

“We have to get them out,” I say, pulling on his leg. I don’t waste any time waiting for his okay. I dig into the wound and, a second later, the bullet lands on the ground with a sharp, metal clink. “My turn,” I say, pushing my shoulder toward him. The bullet’s wedged deep in my flesh, but there’s no time for second thoughts. The stinging has disappeared, gone with the adrenaline now fueling my body.

He looks at me, a little unsure, and then grabs my shoulder tightly, bracing me as he plunges his fingers through the hole. My teeth grind together as I see white.

“Almost got it,” he says.

“Breathe,”
Jaxen tells me, and I can almost feel him next to me, caressing the side of my face, but I’m trying not to focus on the searing pain surging through my body with Weldon’s every movement.

“Got it!” he says, pulling it out.

I suck in a large breath of air just as the safeties are released on every gun in the room, breaking the sound of the rushed footsteps padding our way. I sense the amount of lead about to be released into the air, almost taste its metallic tang. Weldon loads his gun and takes aim. I do the same, peering around the corner of the desk.

General Tillman steps forward, and I’m pretty sure my lungs have frozen solid. My heart bursts into flames. I turn back around, pressing my back against the backside of the desk. Of course it’d be him.

“Tell Weldon to find a shadow and leave, Faye. You’re going to get yourself killed,”
Jaxen says.

I don’t reply. My heart and my mind are playing a game of tug-of-war, and it’s my mind that’s going to win.

“I don’t believe it,” Tillman says from the other side of the desk. “Clara said it’d only be a matter of time until you showed up. I have to admit, I didn’t believe her. I mean, who in their right mind would return to their death?”

“If you think that’s why we’ve returned, then maybe you should have your head checked,” Weldon spouts off.

I peer back around the corner. Tillman’s a few feet away from the desk. Unarmed. “Surrender now and come with us, and no one will be harmed,” he says sharply.

I turn back to look at Weldon.

“Harmed?” Weldon barks out on the edge of suppressed laughter. “Don’t you think it’s a little late to be declaring that?” Blood still pumps from his calf, smoke rising from his flesh.

“Don’t push me,” Tillman says, impatience dangling from the edges of his tone.

Weldon looks over at me and rolls his eyes. He turns back to the edge of the desk and shouts out, “And where’s this place you want to take us?” in his best serious voice.

I’m trying to figure out how he could possibly make jokes. How he could possibly think this is funny, when there are so many men in this room that are dangerously close to losing their lives… because of me.

“Clara has summoned your presence.”

“I’m afraid we’ll have to pass,” Weldon says snidely.

“And why is that?” Tillman asks, stepping closer to the desk.

“Because, despite the fact that I’m incredibly strong and swift, I’m a highly superstitious person, Dullman. And one of my many, very unfortunate superstitions involves your conniving High Priestess. I can only see Clara when I’m wearing my blue underwear, and today, I chose red. So you see, it can’t happen, or I’ll be jinxed.”