Shadow's Awakening: The Shadow Warder Series, Book One (An Urban Fantasy Romance Series) (3 page)

Conner moved with deliberate steps, keeping to the shadows as he got closer to the Voratus and the girl. She was young, not over twenty, he guessed. Small boned, wearing a too-short skirt and flimsy top. In this neighborhood, most likely a working girl. Not a Voratus’s meal of choice. Most of them were too numbed out by life to give good fear. The demon probably wanted to feed and get out of the rain. To that, Conner could relate. One more kill and he’d kick back with a burger and a beer.

Nearing the pair, Conner tried not to wince as the thing shoved its hips between the girl’s legs, grinding into her pelvis in simulated rape. She shook with terror, twisting against his hold. Years of experience hunting Vorati told him the best approach. This one was making it easy, enraptured with its meal. It hadn’t heard the faint scuff of Conner’s boots on pavement. The girl was so frightened she wouldn’t notice a lightning strike right next to her. Conner circled to the back of the Voratus. Drawing his long-bladed knife, he centered himself just behind his target. The stupid thing still hadn’t realized it was no longer alone with its victim.

Moving with liquid speed, Conner drove the knife into the demon’s back as he wrapped his arm around its neck. The knife and lack of air startled the Voratus just enough for it to drop the girl. Conner twisted the blade, trying to keep its attention on its own pain for just a few moments.

“Run,” he shouted at the girl. She’d collapsed in the dirty, wet alley, her legs too weak to hold her up, her stare blank with shock. Conner hoped she wasn’t drunk or stoned. Dealing with the Voratus would be a whole lot easier if she took off.

“Get up and run,” he said, willing her to listen. “Now. Go.”

Awareness began to seep into her face. Eyes widened as she took in the sight of her attacker impaled on Conner’s knife. The Voratus struggled, heedless of the knife cutting through its bleeding flesh. Vorati-possessed bodies felt pain. They just didn’t care that much about it. Conner often wondered if they savored their own pain. It certainly didn’t slow them down for long. That was one of the reasons Conner rarely brought a gun when he was hunting. Unless he got a head shot, bullets didn’t do much to a Voratus. The demons healed as fast as a Warder. He could do more lasting damage with the knife. Back in the day, he’d favored an ax. Sadly, a battle ax drew too much attention on the streets of Charlotte.

The girl finally registered that her attacker was trying to pull out of Conner’s hold. New fear flooded her face, forcing life into her shaky limbs. She surged to her feet, taking flight down the alley in an awkward rush.

Conner released his hold on the demon’s neck and shoved it hard. The unexpected push propelled the body off his knife and into the side of the alley. Conner tried not to enjoy the crack of the thing’s wide forehead against brick. It turned to face him, assessing exactly how dangerous Conner would be. Conner fell into an open fighting stance, waiting for the thing to make a move.

“Goddamn Warders,” it said. “Always getting in the way of a good meal. I don’t suppose I can convince you to let me go?” Its voice was oddly cultured, coming from the brutish body.

Conner laughed. “You must be high if you think I’m going to let you go,” he said.

“This body isn’t as strong as it looks. It’s sick,” the Voratus whined. “I’m not a threat.”

“Right.” Conner shifted the knife to his left hand. With his right he reached into an inner pocket of his duster. His fingers closed around a calix. Palming the copper, dart-shaped device, he withdrew it and lowered his hand out of the demon’s line of sight. “I’m sure you’re going to take this opportunity to join a knitting club. No more raping and killing prostitutes?”

“I wasn’t going to kill her!” the Voratus protested.

“Just rape her,” Conner said, not trying to hide the sarcasm. He thumbed the protective tip off the sharp point of the calix.

“She’s a hooker. It’s not really rape,” the Voratus said, dismissing his victim. “It’s not like I’m staking out grade schools.” It watched the knife, waiting for Conner’s attack.

“I don’t care if she is a prostitute,” Conner said. “She’s human, which makes her mine.”

“You Warders.” The thing shook its head in derision. “I don’t know why you waste your time on the humans. You could rule their world and instead you run around protecting them. They aren’t worth it.”

Conner didn’t bother to respond. The Warders had been created thousands of years ago for the express purpose of protecting humanity from the Vorati. It was what they did. Conner couldn’t imagine walking away, abandoning the fragile human race to face a predator they had no idea existed. Few of his kind ever reconsidered their mission. With no opposition to the Vorati, the world they shared with the humans would degenerate into hell.

The demon thought it had distracted Conner with conversation. It inched over to the right, thinking that Conner’s lowered hand meant he wasn’t ready for an attack on that side. The flicking sound of a switchblade registered a second before Conner raised his hand to block the strike. Fire streaked across his forearm. A small wound. Nowhere near enough to slow him down.

Bending into the demon’s attack, hunched as if curled over the knife slice, Conner drove his shoulder into the Voratus’s gut. Trapped by its own momentum, the Voratus flipped over Conner’s back to land, stunned, in a dank puddle. Without a second’s hesitation, Conner drove the point of the calix deep into the center of the Voratus’s chest. The copper dart surged to life, sucking the Voratus from its host body with violent force, trapping the demon’s essence in the flat copper bulb at the end of the dart.

Conner watched the light fade from the demon’s eyes as a familiar rush of sound told him the calix was doing its job. When the alley was silent again except for the rain, Conner pulled the copper dart easily from the body. The next day Conner would deliver it to the Warder Citadel where they’d store the full calix with the others. Someday, when they discovered a way to destroy the Vorati completely, the immense warehouse would be purged of centuries of evil. But that was the future. Right now Conner was going to get out of this damned rain and meet Kiernan for a beer.

As he left the alley, Conner flipped a wooden disk with dark markings onto the body. Before he reached the street, the disk began to smoke. Seconds later, as Conner turned the corner, the body disappeared in a flash of light and smoke.

Chapter Two

Conner pulled out his phone and sent Kiernan a quick text. A few nights a week they met at a bar in the neighborhood between their territories. Ten minutes later, he pushed through a heavy wooden door and escaped the cold, wet night. Inside, the air was warm, the light dim, and the friendly hum of voices welcomed him. The scent of fried food and beer was mouthwatering. A short, middle aged woman behind the bar spotted him and pointed to a worn wooden booth in the far corner. Kiernan waited there, dark blond hair curling from the rain, a well-curved waitress perched in his lap.

Conner grinned. Just as he’d thought—warm, mostly dry, with a woman in his lap. Kiernan never had trouble drawing women. Old, young, pretty, plain, they all loved Kiernan. His easy manner combined with that face and build were impossible for females to resist. Kiernan was tall and strong, as most Warders were, but without Conner’s more imposing height and heavier muscles. While Conner’s face wouldn’t break any mirrors, his features were rough hewn, eyes and hair dark. Kiernan was elegant. He looked as good in a tuxedo as he did in his fighting leathers. Conner was pretty sure he’d look like an overdressed ape in anything other than his normal clothes.

As he drew closer, Conner watched the woman on Kiernan’s lap giggle. Kiernan smiled, looked up and spotted Conner. He whispered in the girl’s ear, squeezed her hip, and sent her off to disappear into the bar. Conner saw the beer in front of his seat and gratefully slid into the booth.

“You look a little wet,” Kiernan said.

“Yeah, fuck you,” Conner said. “How long have you been here?”

“Not long. Only about an hour. I ordered when I got your text.”

The waitress appeared a moment later, balancing a tray loaded with food. Conner’s mouth flooded at the sight. Burgers, cheese fries, nachos. Nothing green in sight. It looked like heaven. Between hunting Vorati, training, and Warder physiology, their bodies burned a lot of calories. Conner’s focus had been on his hunt and the bad weather. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was. He reached for his burger the second the plate hit the table. Kiernan gave the waitress a sunny smile.

“Thanks, Julie. As you can tell, Conner is starving.”

“No problem, Kiernan. I know Conner’s always starving when he gets off work. What do you do that gets you so hungry?” she asked, turning her attention to Conner.

“Personal trainer,” Kiernan said with a straight face.

In his fighting leathers and shaggy hair, Conner couldn’t think of many people who looked less like a personal trainer than he did. The waitress looked at him, head cocked to the side as if trying to solve a puzzle.

“For weightlifters,” Conner said.

“Oh, okay.” Julie said. Her face cleared and she turned back to the bar. Putting her hand on Kiernan’s shoulder, she said, “Let me know if you need anything.”

As the waitress was swallowed by the crowd, Conner shook his head. “I don’t know how many times she’s asked that. Last time you told her I was a masseuse.”

“She’s not the sharpest tack, but that’s not her fault. She’s a nice girl,” Kiernan said with a hint of affection.

“You think they’re all nice,” Conner said around bites of his burger.

“That’s because most of them are.” Kiernan reached for his own food.

“They’re nice because they’re dying to sleep with you. If I didn’t know you sucked at spell craft I’d think you were enslaving half the female population.”

“It’s called charm, Conner. You might try it once or twice. You could actually get laid.”

“Fuck off,” Conner said without heat. “I get laid plenty. And I’m not good at charm. The last time I tried to charm a woman she slapped me and you almost pissed your pants laughing.”

“That was a long time ago,” Kiernan said, leaning back in the booth. “You could try again.”

“Whatever. It’s too much work to juggle a harem.”

Conner finished his burger in one last huge bite. The grinding in his stomach finally quiet, he could enjoy the rest of the meal without feeling like his belly button was fused to his spine.

“Why are you in so early?” he asked. “Rain chase you off?”

“Hell no. I found a small nest downtown. Four Vorati, all fatal infections,” Kiernan said, smile gone, face grave.

Kiernan’s dedication to hunting Vorati was just one of the reasons he’d been Conner’s closest friend for more than a century. Kiernan could be a smartass and he loved women, but he knew his duty and he was very good at his job.

“You should have called for backup. Injuries?” Conner asked. Four Vorati in healthy bodies could be a hell of a fight.

“None to me. All four dead. They were strong but stupid. I cleaned the place out and thought I deserved a beer.” Kiernan grinned and lifted his mug. Conner sat back and digested the information.

“How many nests have we seen in the last year?” he asked.

“At least two a month, if not more,” Kiernan answered.

“And how many of those were fatal infections?”

“All of them.” Kiernan paused. “I can’t remember the last time I tagged one for removal and healing.”

“Neither can I,” Conner said. “I don’t know what’s more disturbing—the rate of fatal infection or that they’re working together.”

“Nesting Vorati are a mess. It’s easier for them to infect more humans. Easier to feed.” Kiernan sighed. “Honestly I always wondered why they didn’t nest before.”

“I called the Historian in Atlanta this morning,” Conner said. “I wanted to know if he had any info on nesting in the archives. He said there was nothing. That grouping behavior is pretty much unknown. They work alone. They’re territorial, competitive, and generally shortsighted. They don’t cooperate.”

“Except that they are cooperating,” Kiernan said. “We can’t be the only ones seeing this.”

“No, but maybe the only ones reporting it. The Historian said he’s heard rumors over the past few years, but nothing substantial enough to document.”

“What do you think is going on?” Kiernan asked.

“No fucking clue. I mentioned it to Alexa.”

“Waste of time.”

“Basically,” Conner said. “She blew me off and said Vorati behavior hadn’t changed in fifteen hundred years and it was unlikely to change now. She told me to take a few days off and get some rest.”

“Fuckwit,” Kiernan said. “I can’t remember the last time I bothered to talk to her. She sends me texts and emails. I ignore her. We have a good working relationship.”

“Normally I’d say something about respecting Alexa’s function and position, but you’re right. She’s a fuckwit.”

“Yeah. Lazy as hell and she has no idea what’s going on outside her office. Fucking handlers.”

“They’re not all like that,” Conner protested.

He and Kiernan had a fundamental difference of opinion over the structure of Warder society. Discovered on the streets as a young teenager and brought to the Academy for training, Kiernan had an innate disregard for authority. As a trainee, he’d been rebellious, angry, and dismissive of all authority figures. He was glad to have the hot meals, a warm bed and the training, but he wasn’t interested in buying into several millennia of history and tradition.