CRYSTALLUM (The Primordial Principles Book 1) (2 page)

"Found it." Cole grinned, and a wave of silver light rushed up from the ground like a geyser.

"Show off."

"Don't hate, Dan."

***

With a deep breath, Kade released her white wings. They spread wall to wall across her bedroom, their tips rising to points above her horned head and skimming the ceiling. It was freeing, a release she rarely allowed—forbidden to show her true form.

Snow flurries drifted by her second-story window, and she watched the tiny white specks stick to the dark glass as night pressed in, distorting the view of the forest outside. The usual screams
resonated in her head—the ones she couldn’t shut off or ignore. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the barb protruding from her cheekbone. The sharp red tip had pricked her flesh enough times that she'd learned not to touch it. The crimson spikes that disfigured her jawline were no different. She'd memorized every gruesome detail of her face after it had morphed into a demon’s when she was five years old, telling herself she wasn't a monster—trying to convince herself it was true. It never worked. Twelve years later, her reflection remained the same, and the memories still replayed, so many of them, reminding her of what she had become.

Kadence skidded to a hard stop, reaching for a tree branch to slow her speed. The toes of her shoes hung off the cliff ledge, small rocks and dirt showering down the face of the mountain.
Shrill screams ripped through the darkening forest and vibrated through her chest. The Shadows enveloped the woods and sky like black ink, blocking out what was left of the evening light.
She couldn't tell how many there were, only that they far outnumbered her. Too many to fight off alone.

"My beautiful Kadence. Why do you run from me?" Dracon's voice
rang inside her head as black-red wings rose above his horned head. He reminded her of the devil. "I only wish to talk so that you might understand." The creature grinned, rows of pointed teeth gleaming from
inside his elongated mouth. "We are not enemies, you and I. We are born of the same ilk. Look at yourself." Slitted nostrils expelled smoke into the chilly air.

Kadence shook her head. She was nothing like him, no matter what he told her, no matter what she saw in the mirror. Nothing like
them.

She stared down the face of the cliff into a deep, waterless gorge a hundred feet below. It was riddled with snow dotted treetops.
She had run as far as she could through the woods.

"It is too far down, my fledgling." The creature motioned for the Shadows infiltrating the skies to stop with a flick of his black taloned hand. "Please, do not attempt to flee. Let us talk. As I said, I want only your understanding. You mustn't be frightened by what you truly are. It is a gift unparalleled." He beckoned her away from the ledge, black hoofs sinking into the ground, his musky stench overwhelming her. "Let me help you." He reached out a clawed hand.

She jumped.

“Kadence!” A hard knock on the bedroom door jolted her out of the memory. The one she hated most. "We're here! You ready?"

"Yeah...uh, just a second, Giselle!” Snow continued to fall in silence outside the bedroom window, flakes glittering under the moon’s soft light. Kade turned toward the bathroom, her wings disappearing into her shoulder blades as she pulled her shirt over her head. The protrusions on her face retracted, and her heart-shaped face returned. Her unblemished face. The one she knew—recognized. The face she'd been born with.

Shoving the bathroom door closed with the heel of her black boot, Kade brushed her hair and straightened her skirt. The birthmark in the center of her left palm glared up at her. Another constant reminder of what she had become. This one was stained into her skin like an incurable plague. A reminder she couldn't make
disappear. The pale mark resembled the full moon, and if she peered closely enough, she swore dark craters were present around the edges. She'd tried to scrub the spot off until her skin bled more than once. It was no use.

"Kadence!" Giselle banged on the door, impatience coloring her tone. "Let's go, we're already running late!"

"I'm coming!" Kade returned to her bedroom. Even though she and her dad had moved to Boulder a couple of weeks ago, most of the U-Haul boxes still sat labeled, taped, and unpacked. Another bedroom in another house she would barely have the time to settle into. No posters or pictures of friends would decorate the plain vanilla walls. She never bothered. They would all have to be taken down when she moved again in a few weeks anyway. This time into student dorms with the other losers who got shipped off to become someone else’s problem. The thought of moving away from her dad, the only person who knew her truth, loomed like an impending death sentence.

“Kadence!" The bedroom door rattled. "Come on!”

"I'm coming," Kade grumbled under her breath and glanced at the plain walls, free from nails or hooks. She didn't have photos of friends or family to hang anyway. A person had to
have
friends and
family for that. With a glimpse toward her bathroom mirror, the layers of her creamy skin shed away, and her face morphed into the monster.

Her altered face. The real Kadence now.

No amount of moving, or pretending, would ever change it.

"Kade!"

Drawing in a deep breath, she forced the protrusions to vanish, strode toward the bed, snatched up her jacket, and opened her bedroom door.

THE HIVE REEKED
of reptilian stench.

Cole stepped through the blacked Leygate and into an abandoned church, an inescapable musky odor coating his body like
a thick blanket. Bringing the collar of his T-shirt up, he covered his mouth and nose. "I guess we can officially confirm that Filios Daemoneum have been here."

"Devil's Children, Cole." Danny directed the faint light of his crystal telum toward a balcony in the dilapidated building. "Say Devil's Children. No one cares that you speak Latin." He took off toward the balcony.

Cole rolled his eyes and glimpsed light reflecting off the floor. Splintered blue glass lay shattered under his feet along with fallen rafters and debris. Busted stained glass windows illuminated what was left of the church. Walking the pews, he spotted a plaque on the front podium.

St. Mary's Cathedral.

Salt Lake City, Utah.

Burned into the altar underneath was the serpent symbol of a snake entwined around an egg. He glanced at the drawing on his hand. Perfect match.

"Dan?" Cole lifted his gaze toward the balcony. "Find anything or are you waiting for me to rescue your incapable ass?"

A loud thud, followed by several splintering cracks, and Danny emerged from an old wooden staircase in the front of the church. "You wish you had to rescue me."

"You fall down the stairs?" Cole laughed and in the distorted light, something dark covered the side of Danny's face and shirt. "What happ—"

Danny waved a bored hand. "Just a scratch. Didn't think about it when I ran up there. This place is in bad shape. Half of the ceiling
fell on me. There's nothing left of the upstairs. Find out where we are?"

"Salt Lake City." Cole walked the perimeter of the church, hoping to catch a glimpse of energy, a slight shimmer that shouldn't be there or an odd coloration that would reveal a different kind of gateway. Ones that would swallow someone whole, or Sheol gates that took their victims straight to the Infernal Plane. Daemoneum liked those best. Easy way to throw their trail off and if they were lucky, kill their pursuer in one shot.

"Utah," he said, when Danny didn't answer.

"I know which state Salt Lake City is in." Danny wiped his bloody face with his arm, tainting the sleeve of his shirt red. "There were half-ass energy conjurings everywhere upstairs. It's like the church folk were trying to ward off vampires with garlic and wooden crosses."

"Down here, too." Cole ran a finger across a dirty pew. "There's nothing here but this." He motioned toward the serpent symbol on the altar.

Danny's eyes narrowed. "
Et Mortali Spiram
. The Mortal Coil. That makes the second one we've found in less than an hour."

"The second one we've found in an abandoned church. Looks like the Devil's Children have adapted a new trademark."

"Found this upstairs." Danny tossed something shiny in the air.

Cole caught a small crystal. "How did this get here?"

"That's the question of the night." Hands on his hips, Danny heaved a breath, eyeing the walls that years of decay had weathered.

Cole turned the crystal over in his hand, inspecting the symmetrical faces. Untainted, perfectly translucent. The kind of crystal only the Ward could get its hands on. The kind of crystal that could either heal or harm depending on the owner. "Show me where you found this."

***

"No one told you to leave your jacket in the car." Lindsey picked up speed. "Can't you move any faster?"

"No." Giselle's high-heeled boots wouldn’t let her run without falling face first onto the freezing pavement. "If we would've left someone's house on time, we wouldn't be so late." She rubbed her hands down her pale arms with a shiver, and gave Kadence an annoyed glare.

Kade kept silent behind them, shifting the collar of her jacket up against the biting wind. Even after a couple of weeks, she still wasn't sure what she thought of her new “friends.”

The line outside the Crystalline Club stretched all the way around the side of the brick two-story building, clusters of kids huddled together, bracing themselves against the unseasonable cold. Kade claimed her spot behind Lindsey and a shuffle somewhere near the back caused a tide of bodies to lurch forward.

"Will you stop pushing!” Giselle swung around, her tiny pink purse flying from her wrist, and turned on a guy behind her. Her green eyes darkened and a mutinous expression creased her brows.

The guy, who could have been a wrestler with his thick arms and chest, lifted his hands, palms out. "Sorry."

Giselle made a growling noise, yanking the front of her skirt down. "Stupid people. Can't even stand in a line without being felt up."

Kadence gave a half-grin. Since moving to Boulder, she'd only met Giselle and Lindsey, and she'd been to Crystalline one other time with them. It was an okay club. All ages like the ones she went to back home in Utah.

Not that Utah could be considered home.

Another shove and people yelled from the back of the line. Lindsey stepped away from the crowd, clad in dark skinny jeans and high-top, red Converse. Her five-foot-ten height gave her a good vantage point of the commotion.

"Oh, hell." She swept her long dark bangs off of her forehead, her red-brown complexion highlighted by the streetlights, and stepped back in line.

"What?" Giselle rubbed her hands down her pale, thin, goose-pimpled arms.

"Nothing."

"What is it?" Giselle glanced over her shoulder. The guy behind her backed up like he was afraid she might try to hit him again and the line started moving. "Finally."

Glowing drawings over the entrance shifted Kade's attention upward. Snakes with opened mouths leered over the crowd, their fangs dripping with venom. Silver ovals attached by serpent heads and tails lined the door frame, and at the highest point over the entry, a pristine, white oval, larger than the rest, was coiled by a black snake. Averting her gaze, she pushed inside Crystalline.

Bass ricocheted off the dark walls inside the club, while strobes danced across the faces of the crowd and blinded Kade in scattered spots of white light.

"What kind of music is this?" Giselle grabbed Kadence's hand, leading her through the swamp of people.

Sweet, opaque fog engulfed their bodies and miniature green and purple stars flickered down Kadence's black skirt and over her boots. The lights pulsed across red walls, over green and yellow concrete floors, and on Lindsey's laughing face. Her teeth gleamed, her golden eyes eerie. Oscillating fans attached to the ceiling pushed the hair off Kade's shoulders, and more liquid fog descended like hundreds of pearly ghosts onto the crowd.

"Can you guys breathe?" Giselle waved a hand. "God. They're trying to kill us by suffocation and shitty music."

Gyrating bodies pressed in, hot and sweaty, as the volume increased. A familiar sensation roiled in Kade's stomach and her body shuddered with a quick, steady vibration. The sensation sang through her arms, over her shoulders, and the air moved. Like ripples traveling over the surface of a calm lake. Gray vortexes formed near the pulsating lights, and black holes grew in the ceiling, as if acid ate away the plaster. Spreading outward, Shadows formed like impending death over the unsuspecting crowd.

Two of them.

Two of them no one else would see.

Kade froze, adrenaline streaming through her body as energy swelled in her core, cutting off her ability to breathe properly. Her shoulder blades strained as if her skin was pulled too tight, and a sharp pang radiated along her jawline, causing her mouth to clamp shut. The Shadows dropped from the ceiling onto the dance floor, their forms blurring around the edges, flickering between deep gray and silver. Narrow, milky eyes centered on Kade's face, lopsided mouths straining to smile, rows of pointed silver teeth gleaming.

"Afraid?"
a voice echoed inside Kadence's head.
"Didn't think we'd find you?"

She didn't answer. Had never answered any of their taunting threats over the years. It only made them more real—only made the fact that she was something other than human harder to accept.

"We haven't seen Dracon in a while. Have you?"

Panic infused her as the Shadow moved forward through the crowd, its dead, inhuman gaze remaining centered on her face. She took a step back, remembering the day so long ago that she'd
jumped off the cliff to get away from the Shadows—away from Dracon.