Darkness Splintered

I frowned. “Meaning what?”

“It was you who gave us the idea, actually.” She rose, dusted off her knees, then offered me a hand.

I accepted it, and climbed wearily to my feet. Azriel touched my elbow, not holding me up, but there in case I needed him.

“Or rather,” Ilianna continued, “our discussion about creating personal wards and using the wearer’s life force or aura to power the devices.”

“I’m not seeing the connection.”

Ilianna smiled. “Neither did we, not at first. But once we realized the cord hadn’t tapped into Mirri’s aural shield, it was then a matter of where else could it be getting its energy from.”

“The source was its creator,” Azriel commented.

Ilianna glanced past me and nodded. “Yes. And as Risa had pointed out, I’d learned enough of the magic to subvert her father’s wards to our own use, so it was simply a matter of unpicking the appropriate threads in the collar and rerouting those.”

She made it all sound so easy when it was obvious from the haggard appearance and tired stance of all three women that it had been anything but.

“So when my father tried to kill her —”

“The energy rebounded back to him.”

“Which would explain the fierceness of the explosion,” Azriel commented. “It wasn’t just Amaya.”

“Explosion? What explosion?” Ilianna said.

“The explosion that killed my father and destroyed our home.”

“If losing our home is the price we have to pay to rid the world of that bastard, then good riddance, warehouse.” Her voice was grim. “And the key?”

My gaze went to Kiandra. Even though her expression gave little away, I had no doubt she knew what had happened.

“The key is lost,” she said, immediately confirming my thoughts. “The second gate is open.”

“Yes.”

“Oh, fuck,” Ilianna said.

“Yeah,” I said. “That, and a whole lot more.”

“The sorceress?” Kiandra asked.

“Gone.” I hesitated. “Maybe.”

She nodded, her expression stoic. But I had a strange feeling that nothing I’d said had surprised her. That the loss of the second key and the opening of its gate were events she’d long known would happen.

“There is still hope left,” she said softly. “At least there is as long as you and the last key remain in play.”

“If the safety of the world depends on my actions,” I said bitterly, “then heaven help the fucking world.”

She blinked; then her gaze refocused. I suddenly realized she’d been seeing into the future.

“To use a worn-out cliche, the fate of the world hangs in the balance. You must not give up, Risa, no matter what it costs or however much you might want to.”

I wouldn’t.

I couldn’t.

Hell on Earth might be one step closer, but there was no way I was about to bring my child into a world overrun by hell’s spawn.

Somehow, I’d find a way to stop the Raziq and secure the third key.

We’ll find, not you’ll find, Azriel corrected, voice stern. Whatever we do from now on, we do it together.

I twined my fingers through his but felt no safer for the comfort of his touch.

Because I knew, just as he knew, just as Kiandra undoubtedly knew, that even together we might not be strong enough to win the last, and perhaps the most important, battle of all.

The battle for life.

Darkness Falls Don’t miss our special preview of Darkness Falls, the thrilling conclusion to Keri Arthur’s fantastic Dark Angels series…

The Raziq were coming.

The energy of their approach was very distant, but it blasted heat and thunder across my senses and sent them reeling. But even worse was the sheer and utter depth of the rage that accompanied that distant wave. I’d known they’d be angry that we’d deceived them, but this… this was murderous.

Up until now, the Raziq had used minor demons to kidnap me whenever they’d wanted to talk to me – although their version of talk generally involved some kind of torture. This time, however, there would be no talking. There would be only death and destruction.

And they would take out everyone – and everything – around us in the process.

It was a horrendous prospect given we were still at the Brindle, a place that not only held aeons of witch knowledge, but was also home to at least two dozen witches.

“We cannot stay here.” The familiar masculine tones broke through the fear holding me captive.

My gaze met Azriel’s. In addition to being my guardian, he was my lover, the father of my child, and the being I was now linked to forever, in both life and afterlife. When I died, I would become what he was – a Mijai, a reaper warrior tasked with protecting the gates to heaven and hell, and hunting down those demons who broke through hell’s gate to cause havoc here on Earth.

Of course, reapers weren’t actually flesh beings – although they could certainly attain that form whenever they wished – but rather beings made of energy who lived on the gray fields, the area that divided Earth from heaven and hell. While I was part werewolf and therefore flesh, I was also part Aedh, who were the energy beings who’d once lived on the fields like the reapers and who were the traditional guardians of the gates. My father had been one of the Raziq – a group of rebel Aedh who were responsible for not only the destruction of the Aedh, but for the creation of the three keys to the gates – and he was also the reason they were currently lost.

Or rather, only one key was still lost. I’d found the first two, but both had been stolen from under my nose by the dark sorceress who’d subsequently opened two of hell’s gates.

Things hadn’t quite gone according to plan for her when she’d opened the second one, however, because she’d been captured by demons and dragged into the pits of hell. I was keeping everything crossed that that’s exactly where she’d remain, but given the way luck had been treating us of late, it was an even-money bet she wouldn’t.

“Risa,” Azriel said when I didn’t immediately answer him. “We must not stay here.”

“I know.”

But where were we going to go that was safe from the wrath of the Raziq?

I closed my eyes briefly and tried to control the panic surging through me. And yet that approaching wave of anger filled every recess of my mind, making thought, let alone calm, near impossible. If they got hold of me… My skin crawled.

It took a moment to register that my skin was actually crawling. Or at least part of it was. I glanced down. The wingless, serpentlike dragon tattoo on my left forearm was on the move, twisting around like a wild thing trapped. Anger gleamed in its dark eyes, and its scales glowed a rich, vibrant lilac in the half-light of the room.

Of course, it wasn’t an ordinary tattoo. It was a Dusan, a creature of magic that had been designed to protect us when we walked the fields. It was a gift from my father, and one of the few decent things he’d actually done for me since this whole key saga had begun.

Unfortunately, the Dusan was of little use here on Earth. It shouldn’t even have been able to move on this