Shadows Before the Sun

She laughed and resumed shoveling cereal into her mouth as I stood at the sink, rinsing my bowl out, amazed and embarrassed that I’d been so intent on the Charbydon races that I’d missed the obvious hovering right over my head.

And I didn’t need a Charbydon to use the darkness, just like Pen didn’t need to be human to draw out Earth’s energy. All one needed was strength, knowledge, and a shitload of power.

“Rex,” I said, turning to eye him. “I don’t suppose you know any jinn rituals for calling down or commanding the darkness, do you?”

He shut the fridge and gave me the blandest expression, like I was wasting breath even asking him such a ridiculous question. One that didn’t even warrant an answer.

Well, I had to give it a shot. But I was already well on my way to solving the problem because I knew another who had manipulated the darkness. Llyran, the level-ten felon who had stolen a tome from the Adonai’s Hall of Records, one that told him exactly how to command the darkness.

And guess who had that book? The Druid King.

I wiped the table, kissed Emma on the cheek. “Hurry up, we need to get going.”

* * *

After dropping Emma off at school, I placed a call to Hank, filling him in on Emma’s brilliance, then to Pen to let him know we were on our way.

As I parked by the curb near the 10th Street entrance of the Grove, Hank ducked out of his car and my belly went light. I ignored the feeling, turned off the engine, and got out.

Hank approached as I shoved one side of my hair behind my ear and locked my vehicle. I slipped my keys into my pocket. My mark grew warmer. The darkness overhead made me tingle. And my heart rate rose at the idea of facing Sachâth again. Ugh. Talk about edgy. And it was only going to get worse.

“Morning,” Hank’s rich voice broke the quiet.

I drew in a deep, steadying breath and turned. “Morning.” I continued, stepping past him and onto the sidewalk. “Sure you’re ready for this?”

His answer was a casual shrug as he fell in step beside me. “You call Leander yet?”

I stopped. Hank walked a few more steps before turning around with an eyebrow lifted in question. “Hank, are you really sure about this? Sachâth might be designed to kill First Ones, but it’ll attack anything if provoked.” And that meant Hank and Pen were as much a target as I’d be.

He took three long strides, coming to stand directly in front of me, so that I had to lift my chin to look him in the eye. “Were you sure when you left the city to find me?” Of course I was. I didn’t even need to think about it. I nodded. “It’s the same thing, Charlie. We defeated my demons, now we defeat yours.” He tossed a look over his shoulder toward the gate. “Come on.”

We fell in step again. Hank asked again if I’d called Leander. “Not yet. I want to make sure I can read the tome and do what Llyran did. If I can, then we’re all set and should do this as soon as possible. Pen’s meeting us at the henge.”

Sometimes, when it was sunny beyond the darkness, a little light would filter through, leaving the daytime looking like a dark, dark thunderstorm was approaching, but this morning it must’ve been cloudy and overcast because it was black as night outside.

The Grove had become a creepy place since the darkness had parked itself over the city, but now—knowing what I needed to do—it looked downright scary. The ever-present flashes of green snaked through the swirling mass overhead, and the city lights beyond the park bathed Oak Hill in light.

We veered off the main path and walked up the grassy hill to an exact replica of what Stonehenge looked like when it was completed in ancient times. The monoliths were colossal and seemed to grow higher as we went up the hill; they dwarfed us and everything around us.

Pen stood in the center of the henge, the tome spread out on the altar stone in front of him. As I stepped into the circle, a slight vibration of energy went through me. I came up next to the Druid and stared down at the ancient tome, one of the histories of Elysia.

The writing on the pages was a blending of early Elysian, a bridge between the language of the First Ones and the language of the Adonai, which then evolved into the modern Elysian language used by most of the races of that world today. In other words, a bitch to read. There weren’t many people who could.

But I tried to remain optimistic. Llyran had figured it out. And Pen had been in possession of the tome since the battle on Helios Tower. He’d been studying it, trying to decipher the language and the commands Llyran had used to control the darkness.

“Here,” Pen said, passing me an amulet. “I’ve been wearing this to aid in the translation. It should work for you, too. Try it.”

I placed the amulet over my head, let it rest against my skin, and felt its heat snake into my body. It took a minute, but eventually, the words on the tome took shape, some of which I could understand, some of which I couldn’t. “It’s not working all the way.”

Damn it. This had to work. Why wasn’t it working?

“You read the stone tablet in Fiallan, right?” Hank reminded me. “How did you manage that, how did you understand the words?”

“I only read it; I never understood the words. I don’t know . . . this is different writing, though, so maybe . . . Before I used my power. Not anything big, but just . . . engaged it, I guess you could say.”

“Try using your power with the amulet,” Pen said.

Hank leaned closer to me, our shoulders touching. “Just be careful. Don’t draw too much. We’re not ready for war just yet.”

I wasn’t ready for war at all.

I centered myself, drew in a deep, even breath, and closed my eyes, imagining a pinprick of light appearing in my core that worked like a magnet, pulling power from my cells and creating a small well of energy swirling inside me.

Then I opened my eyes. Words reshaped themselves through my vision much quicker than I expected and I understood some of what I saw. “It’s working,” I whispered.

I began flipping carefully through the old pages, until I found what I was looking for and what I knew now were the same words Llyran had read to manipulate the darkness.

If only I could test it first . . .

I released the energy, careful to bank it within my core rather than let it go outside of myself where Sachâth lived. “I need to call Leander.” I slid a glance at the two powerful beings staring down at me from lofty heights. “Are we ready to do this?”

They both nodded.

Goose bumps spread over my skin. “Sachâth won’t sense Ahkneri being this close?” I asked Pen.

“The agate has masked her power for thousands of years. There is a reason she chose that sarcophagus. The water adds a layer of insulation as well.” He crossed his arms over his chest and parked a weighty stare on me. “So what’s the plan, Detective?”

* * *

Thirty minutes and about a hundred I can’t believe I’m doing this mantras later, I stood in front of Hank. Leander and Pen were over by the altar, arms folded over their chests, feet planted, eyeing each other suspiciously and curiously. They’d been at it for at least three minutes.

“All set, kiddo?” Hank asked, flicking the ends of my hair and smiling a crooked smile.

“I’m pretty fucking scared right now, Hank.” A gazillion second thoughts ran through my head, along with every single thing that could go wrong. And I tried like mad not to imagine someone walking up to my front door, telling my kid I’d failed. I was gone. But the thought remained a shadow in the back of my mind.

Shit, shit, shit.

“It’s a good plan, Charlie. The oracle is never wrong. She wouldn’t have said those things if there wasn’t a way to kill it. She wouldn’t have written you that letter and led you down this path. We’ll win because we were meant to win.”

I frowned up at him, wondering if he really believed that or he was just saying it to boost my confidence. He