favorites.” He grinned the way I imagined a mad dog did when it was about to take a chunk out of you. “
We walked out of the vestibule together. As Tomo and Big Joe stepped aside to let us through, a sleek black sedan pulled up to the curb and idled there, engine purring.
Underwood took my gun back from Big Joe. “You remember how to use this, right?” He tossed me the gun. I thought about putting a bullet in him and just ending the charade right then and there, but it would only bring Tomo and Big Joe down on me and I didn’t have time for that. Instead, I slipped the gun into the pocket of my trench coat. Underwood winked at me and said, “I knew you were my go-to guy.”
From behind the steering wheel, the black-haired woman stared at me the way she always did. Her dark eyes looked like bottomless black pits.
It seemed to take forever for Underwood, Tomo, and Big Joe to get in the car. As soon as they drove away, I took off down the block, running as fast as I could. My shadow grew with each passing moment as the sun inched its way up. I tried not to think about what might be happening back at the safe house. Were they fighting for their lives? Were they already dead?
I thought of the list of names, crumpled and hidden inside my mattress. In my mind, I saw the little dead boy in the crack house again, his tiny, shriveled corpse cradled by his shrieking, grieving mother. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to make the image go away, but it stayed, stuck there like glue. What if I was already in too deep to ever get out? Some people didn’t deserve redemption. It terrified me to think I might be one of them.
I turned onto Ingrid’s block and crashed directly into a man walking toward me. I tripped, but the man reached out and steadied me.
“Yo, I got you, pal,” he said. He looked homeless, dirty and foul-smelling with long hair and a knotted beard. His fingernails were rimmed with dirt. The words CHILD OF FIRE were written across the chest of his stained, ratty T-shirt in flaming letters. “Spare some change, pal? Can you help me get something to eat?”
I shook him off without a word and kept running. In the middle of the block I spotted the safe house and prayed I wasn’t too late. When I ran up the stoop, I could still feel the powerful ward pushing against me. For a moment I thought that meant everything was okay, that they’d fixed the ward and were still safe inside—until I reached the double doors at the top of the steps.
The right-hand door was open a crack. That was wrong. Ingrid wouldn’t have left it open. Even with the ward protecting the house, she’d still locked the doors last night. I’d seen her do it. It’s something ingrained in all New Yorkers, as deep as any primal instinct. No matter how safe your neighborhood is, you always lock your door.
I pulled out my gun and carefully pushed the door open. The entrance hallway was in shambles. The umbrella stand and shoe rack had been overturned. The Hummel figurines had been knocked off the top of the credenza and lay broken in dusty shards on the floor.
I looked to the staircase at the far end of the hallway, and my heart dropped into my gut like a chunk of ice.
Halfway up the steps, Ingrid Bannion lay on her back in a pool of her own blood.
Sixteen
I put my gun away and ran to the stairs. Judging by the defensive wounds on Ingrid’s arms and the smoking black scorch marks on the wall, she hadn’t gone down without a fight. She was bleeding heavily from multiple stab wounds, but she was still breathing. She was still alive. I knelt over her. Whoever did this had come looking for me. This was my fault. I should have been here.
“Ingrid,” I said.
Her eyelids fluttered at the sound of her name. “Trent?” She opened her eyes, focusing on me. She winced in pain. “They came right through the ward … I couldn’t stop them…”
“Who were they?” I said.
“Shadowborn,” she said.
I shook my head. “I don’t know who that is.”
“Trent, listen to me.” She sounded winded, a wet rattle at the end of each breath. “Something’s wrong. They never should have found us … not with the ward up … they must have had help … someone told them … someone betrayed us.…”
“I have to get you to a hospital.” I started to slip my hands under her as gently as I could, but she stopped me.
“No. Leave me … there’s nothing you can do. Find the others. Help them.” Ingrid coughed, and blood sluiced out from between her lips. “I was wrong, Trent. You have to tell Isaac—tell him I was wrong. It can’t end like this … everything Morbius believed in … everything the Five-Pointed Star stood for. Promise me you’ll tell Isaac to keep fighting … keep fighting the darkness … Promise me.” She touched my face with her bare right hand. Her fingers were sticky with blood. And then her eyes filled with sudden terror, and she shook her head violently. “Oh God, Trent, your aura … it can’t be…”
She looked so frightened of me, of what she saw in me, that I felt a sudden surge of shame, like a monster confronted with its own reflection. But I had to know. I had to. I put my hand over hers, pressing her palm to my cheek. “What do you see? Who am I?”
Her voice wavered. “No. Your aura … it’s—it’s not human … Oh God…” She coughed blood again, her whole body racking with the effort. She turned away, as if she couldn’t bear to look at me any more.
A chill went up my spine. “Ingrid, please tell me. Tell me what I am. Ingrid…” She didn’t answer. It was only when her hand slipped limply off my cheek that I realized she was dead. I reached down and closed her eyes.
What had she seen that terrified her so much?
What the hell was I?
A sudden crash from upstairs startled me. I reached for my gun. Whoever the shadowborn were, they were still in the house. I raced up the steps. On the second floor, I found the living room in shambles. Furniture had been overturned, and more broken figurines littered the floor. The glass display case above the mantelpiece had been smashed, leaving a heap of fallen antique swords beneath it. A round, silver object was half-buried in the wall at shoulder height. It took me a moment to realize it was the serving tray Ingrid had used last night. Someone had thrown it with such force that it had embedded itself in the plaster.
But the room was empty, the only movement the motes of dust swirling in the columns of morning light from the windows.
Another crash came from overhead, the sound of a door being kicked open. Shit, the bedrooms. I hurried up the steps to the third floor, my finger on the trigger of the gun, but when I reached the top, the hallway was empty. All the doors were closed except one. The door to Bethany’s bedroom. From where I stood on the landing I couldn’t see inside, but a sliver of the wall was visible. So were the shadows that moved across it. Someone was in there—multiple someones, it looked like—and from the sound of it they were tossing the room. Why? Wasn’t it me they were after? Did they really think I’d be hiding under a bed? I inched toward the open doorway, keeping my finger on the trigger.
I only made it a couple of steps before a figure walked out of the room and into the hall. It wore a sleek, black leather jumpsuit that extended up over its neck to form a tight, seamless hood around its head. Its face was hidden behind an oval steel mask, plain and featureless. There weren’t even any eyeholes, though apparently it didn’t need any to know I was there. It turned to face me right away.
So this was a shadowborn. It didn’t look so tough. In fact, it looked pretty scrawny under all that leather.
I leveled the Bersa semiautomatic at it, but had to stop myself from emptying the clip into its chest. This thing had killed Ingrid and I wanted it dead for that—hell, I wanted it to
By way of an answer, the shadowborn drew a katana from the sheath on its back. The sword’s long, thin, single-edged blade glinted in the light of the hallway.
