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Chapter 7
It wasn’t long after I left Willa’s apartment that I saw why the woman had called me Shadow Fire.
Every building I passed with TVs visible through windows, I saw news reports of what had happened at Cassius’s underground manor. Many of the news stories talked about how Cassius was trying to revive Lazarus’s old community, which shouldn’t have shocked me as much as it did. Not at Cassius’s plans, but at the nonchalance with which the news reports discussed it. As if it was simply just another headline that didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things when, to me, it meanteverything.
Vampire feeder communities were allowed to exist because human authorities needed the control they gave over vampire populations to keep those vampires in check. But these communities were never talked about so openly, let alone on the news.
When news anchors weren’t reporting on what Cassius’s success might’ve meant for this area of the city, they were replaying various CCTV footage from relatively nearby buildings when the attack had happened. Fire and smoke, an explosion. It’d all taken down Cassius’s operation within an hour.
But where the news anchors conveniently left out the Lunar League’s involvement and losses, they spent a hell of a lot of time discussing me: Shadow Fire. As if I was some kind of demon or villain. How I destroyed Cassius’s operation but also took innocent lives. As if Mrak hadn’t brought those people back to life.
I understood why I’d been painted in this light, but that didn’t make any of this hurt any less. The media needed a villain, and people these days, with feeder communities everywhere and supernaturals constantly threatening human existence, having someone directly to blame made sense.
But aside from a few not great choices that had only hurt me, and the fact I had been a victim in a feeding community for a decade, I’d only everhelpedpeople in this city. I had made them weapons to defend themselves. I’d helped witches help countless others. I’d evenfreedother victims of Lazarus with Mrak’s help.
I turned away from this latest TV, sat behind a window in a bar, and ducked my head. In Cassius’s manor, when Mrak’s magic had taken control of me, when my human, mortal body had burned with the rage and power of a shadow demon, I’d felt monstrous. Out of control with fire running through my veins.
No better than a vampire with an open vein in reach.
Sadness burrowed into me. Willa was gone. My life had been threatened in Kithonia. My home here in Dark Iron was destroyed.
When would something I love get to stay?
Channel it, I told myself. Which was easy to do as the Lunar League’s headquarters came into view at the end of the street. I barely paused as I passed the same alleyway where I’d nearly killed Leif before heading to Cassius’s manor days ago. These places, these memories—the more time that stood and built between them, the easier it was to push them away. To blame my choices and events on someone else—somethingelse.
I hadn’t felt like myself in so long, I wasn’t sure I knew who that Aisling was anymore. The only thing I knew was that I loved Mrak, and he loved me. And together we would hopefully create peace in Kithonia and maybe stop his brother from screwing up Earth too.
I steeled myself as I approached the Lunar League’s headquarters. From the outside, it appeared as another nondescript building in the city. I didn’t see the runes along its walls with my own eyes, hidden as they were with magic only witches and other Seers could see. But Willa had pointed them out to me when she’d first found the location of their headquarters.
So many of their demon and vampires hunters had died in Cassius’s manor. More to my hand at Mrak’s control. I only hoped they wouldn’t immediately attack me. But I needed to know if it was them who’d captured Willa. The tracking spell had given me the impression that she simply wasn’t anywhere here on Earth. But I refused to believe the worst. The spellhadhovered over the Lunar League last, though.
So maybe…
I clung to the thought as I pushed open the double doors to their headquarters and stepped into an open lobby with tall arched ceilings and walls lined with murals of demon hunters past. They depicted men and women in paintings that had styles reaching back decades. Compared to the nondescript exterior of the building, it was like I’d stepped into a brand new, much more opulent world.
Silence filled the lobby, which I realized quickly was because of the half dozen demon hunters staring at me with confusion at first. Then shock. Then audacity.
“Shadow Fire!” one of them yelled—a man younger than me who held his arm tight to his chest. He drew a dagger with his free hand and summoned magic to the blade.
I held up my hands as if that would make me less of a danger to them. “I’m just here to ask a question.”
It was stupid. I knew it was. To come here and expect them to not attack me simply because I was unarmed. We’d just gotten into a massive fight, after all, and it didn’t matter if it was against a common enemy. That sentiment had gone right out the window when I’d lost control of Mrak’s magic and burned everyone within range.
But Ihadto find Willa. She was my best friend—myonlyfriend, aside from Mrak. We’d escaped hell together, and had I had control of myself at the time, I wouldn’t have left for Kithonia without checking in with her. Without saying goodbye first.
The chance that she may be gone or dead, that a goodbye might now be impossible, cut through my soul. It had me standing here before half a dozen demon hunters who likely now consideredmea demon.
A brittle laugh cut through the astounded silence in the lobby of the Lunar League’s headquarters. I’d recognize it anywhere.
Leif stepped forward past two hunters, looking just as worse for wear as they did. His comrades had healed him enough to join the raid on Cassius’s manor, but our fight with Cassius himself had left him injured once more. He cradled his right side, protecting and favoring his left leg.
“What question could you possibly have for us?” Leif spat, despite the relieved look in his eyes. “I thought you died.”
Ah, there was the probably only reason for the relief. But why did he care so much when I’d nearly killed him myself? At the time, I’d thought he was going to try capturing me to remove Mrak from my soul by force.
I smiled wryly. “Mrak would never allow that.”
Leif’s brow creased. “Of course not. He’s not finished using you yet.” Leif was tall and still dressed in dark jeans and a tattered dark colored shirt stained with splotches of blood. He had bronze skin and dark brown, nearly black hair the same color as his beard and eyes, the latter of which were narrowed in my direction.
