Shadow Hunt (10 page)

“Mayor Bingham has this idea that we’re all basically the same. And in many ways we are. Family, for example, is very important to us. And loyalty is one of our most prized character traits. Power, too, is highly sought after among my kind.”

Mason glanced over long enough to see the mayor’s smile faltering. Yeah, buddy. Little late now.

The crowd was utterly silent.

“But it’s best for you to know that we’re fundamentally different, so much so that there can never really be peace between us.” Smythe continued, “Point of fact, you humans have souls. We don’t. We have dark magic within us. There was a time when you humans used to hunt us down and burn us alive. It’s time for Shadow now.”

That mother who’d seen what Bran Webb could do was looking at Fletcher, her features growing tighter. Mason knew what she was thinking, or would think soon enough—that no soul meant soulless, which meant evil.

Mason held his son, his reason for living, even tighter. What Smythe left out was that each mage had an umbra deep within, a source of magic, not so very unlike a soul. Fletcher was all good, in every way. A person would be
lucky
to know him.

Smythe kept talking,“. . . what the Dark Age will bring . . .” but Mason thought he’d already made his point. No peace.

Mason looked for an escape. The car was too far, the crowd too tight to make much progress. Up ahead, Webb was doing little better with Bran. Any minute now, some mage was going to use Shadow to get free of this place or to make a point. And then there would be chaos.

He squeezed Fletcher. “Everything I say.”

Fletcher nodded.

“Keep your head down.”

With that, Mason adjusted his hold—the kid had grown; why did he keep doing that?—and plowed toward the nearest break in the crowd. He elbowed into backs and barged through groups. The rank smell of sweat hit his nose, that and greasy food too long in the sun. Blood, no, catsup smeared up his arm.

The crowd made a sound of astonishment, one voice that rolled through the gathering as if it had become a single organism.

Mason swore, though he usually tried not to around Fletcher, and craned his head to see what kind of magic had finally been used to break away from this place.

A black snake of Shadow darted and twisted above the heads of the crowd.

Mason didn’t recognize this kind of Shadow. What was it? Who controlled it?

He squinted to see better, adjusting Fletch again, who was trying to see as well.

The sky snake of Shadow branched out, while rushing toward Smythe, who’d trailed off speaking. Guess he didn’t know what kind of Shadow it was either.

The Shadow spread into a dirty blanket of haze and enveloped Smythe.

Mason was too far away to see what the effect was, but the scream of the lady in the pink pantsuit made things clear enough. When Ranulf Smythe collapsed on the stage, Mason was pretty sure the mage was dead.

More black snakes twisted through the air.

More screams rose from within the crowd, and like birds startled by gunshot, people scattered. Mason was buffeted by the rush, but ducked into a jewelry stall to avoid immediate trampling. Others got trampled, though. Strollers were abandoned, children clutched in parents’ arms. See? Humans and mages weren’t so different after all. Not where it really mattered.

“It’s going to be okay,” Mason said into Fletcher’s hair as he put him down on the ground. The booth, with a thick plastic-and-steel girder, would protect them for the moment. “Stay
right
there.”

Mason’s attention was caught on a mage some twenty feet away, visible only intermittently as the passage of fleeing humans allowed. Mason could see that he’d raised his arms to hold back the darkness, when he should’ve known that Shadow could permeate anything.

The murk descended upon him and the mage convulsed, his skin pock-marking with burns, as if from the inside. His eyes rolled back to the whites, then grayed to viscous ash, and the mage collapsed.

Mason came to a simple conclusion: the May Fair wasn’t about peace; the fair was a trap set for mages.

How many times throughout history had a hearty welcome been the early guise of a massacre?

He’d been so stupid. A stray has to know better.

Mason looked to the sky, now polluted with thin Shadow. The death-dealing stuff was inching closer. The booth wasn’t safe anymore.

Mason hauled Fletcher over the side. “We run. As fast and as far as we can. We run, or we die.”

Could an eight-year-old understand?

Mason would have carried him again if it would have been safer, but the humans had grown more dispersed, and frankly, Fletcher could run almost as fast as he could. The kid had speed and power in those legs. Mason’s eyes burned as he cursed again. He just hadn’t anticipated Fletcher would have to run for his life so soon.

They got as far as the parking lot access road when black doom torpedoed overhead, poisoned Shadow picking out the mages from the panicked crowd.

They weren’t going to make it to the car.

Mason made a grab for his son, who was still in flight. Fletcher jackknifed in the air—the muscle in Mason’s shoulder shredded—but he brought his son to his chest and went down on his knees on the street.

He’d have prayed, but if there was a God, he’d long ago forsaken the Shadow born.

Mason curled his body around Fletcher. Screams of fear and pain ripped the air so close, Mason groaned. He strove to make a boy-sized hollow out of his chest and belly, kneeling on the pavement and hugging his son, hands splayed over Fletcher’s face and head, his own head bowed to close the man-made cocoon. Within his grasp, Fletcher trembled, his heartbeat fast like a rabbit’s. Mason’s own heart had stalled. His throat had strangled shut with horror. All necessary body function was diverted into willing his son to live, at any cost, including his own life.

Black, smoky arms of terror reached among the throng, brushing by Mason like whispers of vicious gossip. He felt the Shadow singing in his blood as it drew near; ironic that his affinity with magic would help him know when his death was near. The dull thump and burn of a body falling nearby brought bile searing onto his tongue. Another mage down, moaning, then gargling into death.

“To the Webb wards!” Dalton’s voice, far away, rallying the stricken mages.

Yes, House wards would protect the mages who’d come to the May Fair. House wards were impenetrable magicks of safe harbor. And Webb’s wards were the nearest, not ten miles from the fair site.

But since Mason had no House, no wards to offer in return, that option wasn’t open to him. To his
son
. Not yet. Though he would have begged if there’d been any chance or service he could have traded.

Stray mages were outsiders, no matter how friendly the handshake. How many times did Mason have to learn that lesson?

Humans whimpered and ran, their passage bumping Mason’s shoulder, riffling his hair, as if they were the ones at risk. Stupid. This was a trap for Shadowed blood.

Inside Mason was frantic too:
Not my son. Please, not Fletcher. Pass over. Pass him by.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Today was supposed to have been about peace, an opportunity to make friends.

Someone somewhere was laughing.

Mason ground his teeth against the burning in his eyes. He clutched Fletcher and vowed again, as he had a million times before, he’d do better for his son. Safer. No matter what in blackest Shadow he had to do.

Did you miss SHADOWMAN?

 

 

GHOSTS

 

They haunt the halls of the Segue Institute, terrifying the living, refusing to cross over. But one soul is driven by a very different force.

 

LOVE

 

It survives even death. And Kathleen O’Brien swore she would return to those she was forced to leave too soon.

 

 

SHADOWMAN

 

He broke every rule to have her in life; now he will defy the angels to find her in death.

 

 

THE GATE

 

Forging it is his single hope of being reunited with his beloved, but through it an abomination enters the world. Leaving a trail of blood and violence, the devil hunts her too. Pursued through realms of bright fantasy and dark reality, Kathleen is about to be taken . . .

 

 

Don’t miss Erin Kellison’s FIRE KISSED!

 

 

FAE FIRE

 

It is Kaye Brand’s power to wield. But outcast from her kind, she’s been selling herself to the highest bidder—money for her survival in exchange for a magic glimpse into the flames of the future.

 

ANGEL ICE

 

One of the angelic Order, Jack Bastian has no use for a female like Kaye, as provocative and unexpected as her blazing beauty. Yet he has no choice but to hire her to uncover the secrets of his sworn enemy and her former fiancé, Ferrol Grey.

 

MAGEKIND

 

War is inevitable between the defenders of the Order and the mage houses who threaten to engulf the world in Shadow. For Jack, mage-born Kaye is off limits, no matter how hot the impossible attraction between them. But in the coming darkness, beset by danger and desire, everything is about to change . . .

 

Erin Kellison
is the author of the dark-fantasy romances
Shadow Bound
,
Shadow Fall
, and
Shadowman
, as well as the Shadow Touch and Shadow Kissed series. Stories have always been a central part of Erin’s life. She attempted her first book in the sixth grade, a dark-fantasy adventure, and she still has those early handwritten chapters. She graduated summa cum laude with a degree in English Language and Literature and went on for a masters in Cultural Anthropology, focusing on oral storytelling. When she had children, nothing scared her anymore, so her focus shifted to writing fiction. Find her at
www.ErinKellison.com

ZEBRA BOOKS are published by

 

Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018

Copyright © 2013 by Clarissa Ellison

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

 

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ISBN: 978-1-4201-2801-7

First Electronic Edition: March 2013