AllFreeNovel
Share Us
They left the van a block away and walked toward the Hudson as the sun set in the west, bleeding its remaining daylight across New York’s arterial river.
“Let’s split up,” Zaine said. “But stay close. We don’t want to get drawn into a fight too soon. Meet back at the van in ten.” Zaine veered left with Eric while Octavius walked alongside Saint toward the first of the warehouses.
From the exterior, the buildings appeared to have been abandoned for years. Grass had taken root through the construction fences and an old warning sign had faded from weathering. They spotted a hole in the rusted fence, used by local wildlife and drug dealers, and Saint ducked through. Once on the other side, the story of neglect and abandonment seemed to go on. A few rusted cars sat on bricks, their wheels long ago stolen. But Saint wasn’t buying. Fresh tire tracks led from the main gate, where grass hadn’t grown. The warehouses were used, and recently.
“You said these Nyx worshippers were creating nyks on an industrial scale?” Saint asked.
“Yeah, we shut down two of their industrial locations. The operation in Poland almost killed Kazimir.”
“Why?” Saint lowered his voice. “Do they truly believe more nyks are going to raise their god?”
“Something like that,“ Octavius said. “Raiden, clearly with an ulterior motive, researched them. They believe that chaos will feed Nyx, bringing her back, and the nyks are her creations, so more nyks equals more chaos equals a grateful chaos god.”
Aclangrang out from one of the buildings. Saint crouched in the grass, and Octavius knelt next to him.
After a few moments of quiet, and no movement from the warehouse, Octavius said, “But Mikalis made the nyktelios, she only made the Firsts. She made Mikalis.”
“Right. Their logic is flawed.”
“Logic generally is with religious zealots.”
Beyond the warehouse, a pontoon dock stretched onto the water. A barge had been moored to it.
“Looks as though they’ve been getting deliveries,” Octavius said, following Saint’s gaze.
“Perhaps these newly turned nyks were shipped in from elsewhere?”
“Could be. Let’s get a closer look.”
They needed to get inside that central warehouse but getting close meant slipping past the exterior buildings without being seen. Saint could move through the shadows, but it was risky. He wouldn’t be able to see if there were any guards waiting near where he’d exit, and it would mean leaving Octavius.
“I’m going to take a look through the shadows,” he said.
Octavius grimaced.
“You stay here.”
Octavius’s frown made it clear he didn’t like that idea either. Saint smiled and kissed his snarl. “I want nothing more than to pull you close and drown you in pleasure, Little Wolf. Do not worry, I’ll be right back.” And with that, he stepped back into cool, soundless shadow.
Octavius’s frowning expression swirled away with the rest of him, like a vanishing ghost. He hated to do this, hated leaving him, but it would only be a moment.
Saint turned toward the warehouses, maneuvered around the blurred edges of the outer buildings, and approached the higher walls of the Brotherhood-owned warehouse. Inky darkness beat in waves from inside its walls, as though the shadows were a living, breathing thing, calling to the nyks.
He drew closer, moving among shifting colors and blurred lines. Then, in an area away from any doors and windows and what he hoped was a location that wasn’t being watched, he stepped from the shadows, back into solid, damp reality. Sound washed back in first, bringing with it combined low-level murmurings from a crowd.
He sidled toward a side door, careful to keep low, and got a look through the corner of the door’s broken window.
Nyks filled the warehouse, wall to wall. Thousands of them. All standing motionless, all mumbling, and all facing a scaffold erected in the center, where a figure reclined in a tattered old armchair, like a king on a broken throne.
Mikalis.
All the betrayal and dread Saint had tried to push aside slammed into him, stealing his breath.
It didn’t make any sense. Why would Mikalis be here, why would he lead the nyks? He wasn’t attacking them. His whole reason for creating the Brotherhood had been to destroy the very creatures surrounding him—worshippinghim.
It couldn’t be as Saint was seeing. There had to be something else happening here.
But one thing was certain, this would destroy the Brotherhood.
