Shadow Knight Saga: The Shadowlands

Chapter Twenty-One

Shayne sat in the library wearing only simple, white cotton pajama pants and a matching tank top, her head back, looking up at the stained glass dome above her, watching the sun move across the sky. Omniel retired for the day. He was barely able to keep his eyes open after being up for many days straight. The drama is starting to take a toll on him and Shayne swears that he looks older somehow but it could be her imagination. The Salvia trio will patrol first tonight so they are already in bed. Zeke is posted as a guard in Langley's room. Pele is on a warpath and still blames her for Jaryn's temporary death.

Jaryn called his mother to tell her what happened. She wasn't surprised in the least and that surprised Jaryn more than getting killed by a half-Witch half-Nephilim that had been drying humping him for days, but most importantly, surviving the assassination attempt. Pele sat next to Jaryn while he rambled quickly, retelling his mother over and over, though it was nothing specific as to why or what he found out about the manna. He just kept saying that someone killed him, trying to get some type of emotional response from his mother but it never came. Finally, when a tear rolled down his pale cheek, Pele couldn't take it anymore and took the phone from Jaryn, hung it up, tossed it in the closet, and carried the pouting Librarian over his shoulder to the kitchen for beer and ice cream, and that's where they've been ever since.

But the most concerning of the motley Knights at the moment, in Shayne's opinion, is that Vee is missing.

She knows that he had nothing to do with the impersonator, but she's worried about him. He's been noticeably different since the altercation at the docks. He might be mad at her but she can't be certain, and he won't talk to her and that's upsetting her but she doesn't know why. Usually she'd be happy and content that an annoying boy was staying away from her, ignoring her even, because boys annoy her with their persistence and presence in general. But that isn't the case with Vee. She actually enjoys having him around. True, most of the time he annoys her and it's a struggle to keep from hitting him, but she knows that he does that on purpose just to get a rise out of her so she can't be too irritated about it. But since the docks he's been like a stranger to her, even more so than he was before. He doesn't look at her, doesn't talk, and just stares at the wall as if he's mentally a million miles away.

More than once she's opened her mouth to ask what's wrong, to talk to him, to assure him that everything will be all right. But every time she tries, nothing comes out. It isn't going to be all right, she's well aware of this. And the farther and farther into this darkened mystery, the inscrutableness of it all, they fall, the more dangerous it gets.

White Knights working with Underworlders, and possibly Greater Demons, and targeting a fellow Knight, all while orchestrating a play for power in the very foundation of the Shadowlands to guise their true intent!? The problem is, no one knows what the true intent is. All of this planning simply to kill one Knight? A Knight that doesn't even pose a threat to them because the Guild and Ministry won't support her or her actions, not even those of her Knights? That seems rather farfetched and gives the young Knight more credit than she is due. But at the same time, if they simply want to take her out in order to complete their devious plans without interference, why didn't they have the impersonator do it instead of taking out Jaryn?

Shayne understands that the information Jaryn discovered is very important, and she also understands that killing him to keep it quiet at all costs was even more dire in order to keep their true identities shadowed. But they don't know the identities of any of them, other than the true owner of the dagger. And wouldn't it be a bit obvious to have the half Witch-half Nephilim that's been commissioned with killing the person researching the compound—their compound which they purposely dangled out there for them to do just that, research—kill the Librarian with a dagger belonging to a Nephilim, when the only other survivor of the sect of White Knights that owned the counterpart of said dagger, and knows the significance behind it, was just a few feet away?