Shadowed (Fated) (22 page)

He, Flic and Jamieson reached the far perimeter
wall and ducked behind some bushes.

‘We’re just doing a headcount, right?’ Jamieson
asked, looking as nervous as a suicide bomber.

‘Yeah, just a headcount,’ Cyrus reassured him.
‘Then we run.’

‘If they want a fight, they got one,’ Flic
muttered.

Cyrus twisted to look at her. ‘If they want a
fight, you run, do you hear me?’

She gave him a look.

‘I mean it.’

Flic stared at him stonily, her eyes softly
calculating.

‘No heroics, Flic,’ Jamieson said. ‘Listen to the
man.’

Flic turned abruptly away. Cyrus stared at her
back, at the well-worked muscles running down her lean arms. Damn it, he
thought, another girl who never listened.

‘What are we waiting for?’ Jamieson asked, eyeing
the wall.

‘That,’ Cyrus answered as a gunshot rang out,
blasting through the silence.

Another shot swiftly followed.

‘What’s happening?’ Flic asked. ‘Who’s firing?’

‘Ash. He’s drawing them out.’

‘He’s going to have the police here in thirty
seconds,’ Flic hissed.

‘That’s all the time we need,’ Cyrus said, his
hands already finding grip on the wall and scooting up it. ‘Give me a boost,’
he whispered.

A strong shove sent him flying over the wall. He
tumbled to the soft grass on the other side, his blade in his hand. Jamieson
– in wolf form – landed softly beside him in the next second and
Flic followed behind, landing in a crouch, her blade outstretched.

The three of them froze where they were, their
attention drawn instantly to the blinding white light emanating from the far
side of the beautifully manicured lawn.

‘What the hell is that?’ Flic asked in a shaking
voice, her blade falling limply to her side.

Cyrus grimaced. His mum had been right after all.

Lucas was sweating by the time they made it across the city. On foot
it had taken them nearly three hours, Issa stopping every fifty metres or so to
look ahead, her eyes filming over while Lucas stood guard. It was daylight, the
Thirsters gone to ground, sleeping in the sewage tunnels beneath the city
according to Issa, but groups of Mixen and Scorpio were out roaming the streets
as if they owned the place – which he guessed they did now.

It made Lucas wonder if there were any resisters.
Where had all the Shifters gone? Some must have escaped out of the city –
surely? They couldn’t all be dead. He struggled, trying to remember what lay
beyond the city limits. Wasn’t it just water? Weren’t all the realms just
versions of the human world crossed with an environmental disaster? The
Shadowlands a lunar wasteland, the Shifter realm covered ninety-nine percent in
water, the Thirster world sunk in as much darkness and cloud as a nuclear
winter, the Mixen and Scorpio realms competing for position of fewest natural
resources. Only the Sybll had a realm worth living in. The only reason the
Originals had chosen the human realm to move into next was the food source. It
helped when your prey couldn’t see you coming. But that realm too would succumb
eventually.

‘It’s just up ahead,’ Issa said as they rounded a
street corner.

Things here were familiar and unfamiliar at the
same time. The sidewalks were almost identical to sidewalks in LA –
cracked paving slabs, weeds sprouting in the gaps – but when you stopped
to look more closely, you noticed something was off with the picture, like one
of those spot-the-difference quizzes that appeared in trashy magazines and
kid’s colouring books. It took a while before you saw it. The sidewalks were
wider and the roads were narrower. There were no cars in this realm –
people shifted into faster-moving animals or birds if they wanted to get
somewhere. And there were signs everywhere along the street but not the usual
traffic signs or pedestrian crossing signs. These signs had pictures of animals
on them and were designed to show where shifting was permitted and where it
wasn’t. All across the city were warning signs forbidding shifts into any
animal deemed a danger to the public, or at least that’s what Lucas figured the
picture of a lion with a red line bluntly crossed through it meant.

Issa ducked into the shadow of an apartment
building, pulling him with her. They stared across a wide, empty plaza at a
building that looked a little like a courthouse – sandstone-coloured
bricks, Grecian-style columns and well-worn stone steps leading to an ornate
double door. It was the only building on the street still in one piece, without
boarded-up windows or broken glass or scorched patches of sidewalk outside it.

‘That’s where the gateway opens up?’ Lucas asked,
frowning at the incongruity of it.

‘Yes,’ Issa answered.

‘How many inside?’ Lucas asked, his gaze taking in
the windows and roof, trying to figure out the best way in.

Issa’s eyes whited over. Lucas waited.

‘Three Mixen and a Shadow Warrior.’

‘And on the other side of the gateway?’

He waited while Issa read the situation. A frown
line deepened between her eyes and then they suddenly flashed open, filled with
horror. She gasped as though surfacing from freezing water, her hands clawing
desperately at his arm.

‘What is it? Issa? What?’ Lucas asked, grabbing her
by the shoulders, feeling her panic invading his own body.

‘It’s Flic. And Jamieson,’ Issa choked, her voice a
ragged whisper. ‘They’re right on the other side. You need to go. Now!’ Her
face was a mask of terror.

Lucas didn’t stop for a moment to think. He just
ran, leaving Issa standing there.

He faded as he sprinted across the open square in
front of the building, drawing his blade as he ran, ignoring the sharp
throbbing in his side from his stab wound and the blood pounding against his
skull like an anvil. All his focus was on the building up ahead.

He leapt up the steps and threw his weight against
the door, smashing through it with a splintering crash. Straight away he found
himself in a high-ceilinged lobby. The three Mixen on sentry duty flew to their
feet in panic, spinning in wild, confused circles as they tried to see him. They
jabbed at the air in front of them with their blades.

Lucas moved fast. He slid on his knees beneath the
whirling arms of the first Mixen and sliced him pelvis to throat, before
leaping to his feet to finish off the second with a single slash across the
jugular. She went down in a spray of red. Droplets landed on Lucas’s hands and
he felt the sting as the acid burrowed through the flesh. He ignored it, kept
going, his eyes on the third Mixen who was standing in front of a doorway, his
head flying from left to right, a whimper bursting from his throat.

Lucas materialised in front of him without warning.
The Mixen let out a yelp and cowered backwards against the door. ‘Please, don’t
kill me,’ he cried.

‘You’re in the way,’ Lucas hissed through gritted
teeth.

The Mixen squealed as Lucas touched the tip of the
blade to his chest.

‘Move,’ Lucas said.

The Mixen blinked at Lucas in surprise, then
gathered himself, sprinting for the front door and darting down the steps
towards the plaza.

Lucas put his hand on the door. Already his gut was
twisting in anticipation, his blood pulsing with the knowledge that a Shadow
Warrior stood on the other side. He had only one shot at this. And he had to be
fast. He threw open the door, readying himself for an attack. But it didn’t
come.

Lucas stood on the threshold, his eyes adjusting to
the scorching white light, blazing bright as a prison floodlight.

Suddenly his senses reeled sharply and he spun. A
shadow flew across the light and came barrelling towards him at speed. Lucas
threw up his blade reflexively. It caught and clanged against another shadow
blade, showering him in blue sparks. The vibration shook him to the core. He
grunted and strained against his attacker, trying to push him back and break
his hold, and it was only then, with his face pressed so close to his
attacker’s he could smell his sweat, that Lucas realised who it was that he was
fighting.

‘Tristan,’ he stammered, staggering backwards,
staring in shock at the man who had once upon a time led the Brotherhood. The
man who had trained him to be a killer. The man he’d once respected, whose
orders he’d followed without question.

The man he had ultimately betrayed.

Tristan seemed just as surprised to see him. He
took a step back, panting heavily. The two of them eyed each other, their
blades still half raised, poised and uncertain.

The blood drained instantly from Tristan’s face.
‘You’re alive,’ was all he said.

‘So are you,’ Lucas answered. ‘What are you doing
here?’

‘What does it look like I’m doing here,’ Tristan
spat, his expression dark as thunder. ‘I’m guarding the way through.’

Before Lucas could ask anything else, Tristan took
a darting step forward, slashing his blade in a savage thrust at Lucas’s face.
Lucas darted back but not quite fast enough. The edge of the blade nicked his
chin and a warm trickle of blood ran down his neck.

Lucas swiped at the cut with his cuff as the two of
them began circling each other.

‘You betrayed the Brotherhood, Lucas,’ Tristan
spat. ‘For a
Hunter
.’ Lucas saw the
rage rippling beneath the surface of his skin, contorting his face. There would
be no point in trying to explain anything to Tristan, Lucas realised. And
besides that, he was never going to apologise for choosing Evie over the
Brotherhood.

Tristan stepped quickly forward, hissing through
his teeth. ‘You should have stayed dead.’

Lucas locked eyes with him. He needed to make a
move. Either way, he needed to do something and fast before something happened
to Flic. The thought of his sister seeded another wave of panic through him.
His gaze flickered towards the gateway. Tristan saw and stepped in front of it.

Lucas switched his attention back to Tristan. Could
he kill him? Is that what he was going to have to do in order to get past him?
Could he kill the man he’d already betrayed once? The answer was simple. Yes.
If the choice was between Tristan and Flic, there was no choice. His eyes
skipped over Tristan’s shoulder to the gateway once again. If only he could get
past the man, it wouldn’t need to come to that. The wave of panic was rising.
Flic was in trouble. He could feel it now.

‘Why are you fighting on their side?’ he asked
Tristan.

‘Their side?’ Tristan sneered. ‘You think there are
sides in this? There are
no
sides,
Lucas, in this battle. It’s been decided. The Originals have won.’ Spittle had
appeared at the corner of his mouth; he was so angry his whole body was
shaking.

‘
Nothing’
s
been decided,’ Lucas answered.

Tristan laughed, a harsh braying sound. ‘You think
that Hunter you so willingly betrayed us for and what’s left of the rest of
them stand any chance against what’s on the other side of this gateway?’

Lucas didn’t answer.

‘The human realm is as finished as this one. It’s
over, Lucas.’

‘No, it’s not.’

‘I’m not going to let you walk through there.’

‘Why not?’ Lucas shrugged, circling Tristan,
inching himself closer to the light. ‘According to you it’s instant death
anyway. There’s no hope. So why not let me go?’ He took another step, dropping
his voice to an intimate whisper. ‘Or is it that you want to make me pay for
what happened to the others? For what happened to you?’

Tristan’s yellow eyes darkened.

Lucas took another step towards Tristan. ‘Or do you
want to let me go through there and try to put a stop to this?’

‘You can’t put a stop to it,’ said Tristan,
sidestepping and blocking Lucas’s path one more time.

‘I’m going to try,’ Lucas said softly, squaring his
shoulders.

And if it meant killing Tristan, then so be it.

He lifted his blade and swung.

Evie watched Cyrus, Flic and Jamieson climb the wall into the adjacent
garden. For several endless seconds fear completely paralysed her. She couldn’t
seem to move or breathe or even hold a thought in her head. She just kept
staring at the wall.

Behind her she could hear Selena and RJ bickering.
She tried to block them out so that she could focus and think. All her senses
were screaming. Her nerves felt raw and exposed as though the skin had been
stripped clean off her body. She glanced up the street. Everything was so quiet
but there was an undercurrent, a low-level humming that felt like someone
strumming chords on her bloodied nerves.

Cyrus had told her to stay put, but she couldn’t
just stand here and wait, not knowing what was going on. Should she ditch these
two and follow him? What if he needed her help?

‘Goddamn it, shut up. I’m trying to think,’ she
hissed.