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The monsters are coming for you!
You can’t fight our power!
Humanity is doomed!
On and on like that, just as Toni suggested Balthazar’s strategy would be. He wants the whole world to realize that the shadowkind exist. To believe that the monsters are rising up against mortals so that people will accept his solutions for getting rid of them.
I don’t know if his extermination plan will actually work, considering how resilient the shadowkind appear to be. But I’d rather not watch and see how many get slaughtered in the fallout, even if I haven’t had the best experiences with some of them.
Rollick doesn’t deserve to be hunted down and murdered. Neither do Pearl or Billy or Sorsha’s men who’ve stood with us.
And let’s be real: Balthazar doesn’t like the shadowkind essence inside us shadowbloods either.
I’ll bet the second he thinks the full “monsters” are gone and he doesn’t need his hybrids to do his dirty work anymore, he’ll consign us to the slaughter next.
I lift my gaze from the tablet’s screen to the helicopter window, taking in the clouds streaking past below us. “How much longer until we get to London?”
Rollick gives me a baleful look from his seat at the front of the aircraft. “About ten more minutes. This is as fast as the chopper can go, little banshee. And I’m still not sure making the trip was the wisest idea in the first place.”
I was the one who first insisted that we had to help somehow, but Jacob speaks up before I need to. “Shadowbloods trashed the city. Now shadowbloods will pick up the pieces. Someone has to tell the real story.”
The demon shrugs. “The mortals may not listen to you.”
“We have to try,” I say, hugging myself. “And maybe if we see firsthand what Balthazar’s new shadowbloods did, we’ll get a better idea of what they’re capable of, their tactics—how to fight back when we go after them directly.”
Rollick nods. I thinkthatpoint is the only reason he agreed to escort us to London at all.
My search for Balthazar’s current location didn’t prove all that useful. If he’s going to be moving around all the time, how can we plan an attack properly?
We need more information, more of an edge… And I can’t stand the thought of abandoning all the people he’s hurt and terrorized when we’re more equipped to step in than anyone else could be.
Griffin has taken the seat next to me. He grasps my hand and strokes his thumb over the back of my knuckles. “We’ll do everything we can.”
Zian’s face is taut with bottled anger. “We can’t let that psycho get away with this.”
As far as I can tell, it’s just us six shadowbloods and Rollick in the chopper, although for all I know a few more shadowkind tagged along in the darkness. After the news came in, Rollick ordered the rest of his people to investigate the more distant incidents that they can reach quickly via their portals to and from the shadow realm—and continue devising strategies for our theoretical counterattack.
“Here we go,” the demon murmurs. The helicopter lurches a bit on a gust of wind as it begins its descent. “Brace yourselves.”
I don’t think he’s talking only about the drop to the ground. As the vehicle rushes down toward the sprawl of the city below us, I peer through the window at the chaos of darting figures and flashing lights.
We came by chopper specifically so that we could land right at the scene. A jet might have made the trip faster, but we’d have had to trek through the city from the outskirts after we arrived.
In this aircraft, we’re able to touch down on a broad stretch of pavement next to a jumble of pale, cracked stone that has enough glass and carved edges mixed in to make it obvious it used to be a building. Never having seen London except as a backdrop to an occasional movie, I have no ideawhichbuilding until Rollick shuts off the engine and glances over the scene with a pained slant to his mouth. “So long, Westminster Abbey.”
The second we pour out of the helicopter’s door, several of the figures picking their way across the rubble and pacing around it turn our way. “Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” someone in a bright orange vest shouts.
Griffin steps to the front of our group, his fingers curling toward his palms. With our newly deepened connection, I can feel the quiver of energy that ripples off him as he extends his talent over the scattered rescue crews.
The faces that had twisted with confusion or aggression relax. Everyone goes back to the work they were already doing: hustling uncovered bodies into waiting ambulances, searching the wreckage for more.
I spot a couple of lingering news crews farther away, looking like they’re interviewing one of the rescue workers and a couple of passersby. One of the reporters glances toward us, but Griffin sends an extra waft of disinterest her way.
When he speaks, the slight edge to his voice reveals how much of a strain it’s taking to impose this calm over all those people at once. “I’ll keep my attention on keepingtheirattention off us. I’ll give you as long as I can, but I don’t know how long that’ll be.”
The rest of us don’t need any further prompting to spring into action. Leaving Rollick in the cab of the chopper, ready in case we need to beat a hasty retreat, we scramble into the ruins of the old church.
I only have a vague impression in my memory of what it might have looked like before, but I can tell it was fuckinghuge. There’s a full city block of broken stone strewn around us like low, shattered hills.
