Greys IV - Chains

Chapter 16 - Shadows

Nyx and Boone were Reds, something I should have been able to pick up on much sooner if I hadn't been so distracted. And as much as I disliked admitting it, even just to myself, Malachi was right - I needed to get back out into the city, every city, any city. I should be out with him each night, it was the best practice I could get. And if I truly wanted to be like my Pair had been, like my brother was, I had to be able to see everything at once, to never be distracted, never caught off guard, to watch and design and execute a plan with perfect steps. No mistakes, no hesitation, no mercy.

And tonight was the start.

My second Shift roared in my ears like the ocean, my red vision a filter coating everything my eyes fell on. I kept my control, but I knew I was holding back something stronger than myself. At least the self I was now, who didn't really want to hold it back, who didn't have a reason to, who wanted to see the destruction I could wreak. I knew it was just a matter of time, and with Malachi occupied, his own anger spreading from him like smoke in the air, and Ailech acting more like a Darkling than a mage, I was on my own.

Ailech was following Malachi's orders with suspicious diligence, and whether he obeyed because of some influence from their connection or because he gained a part of the person he drew from - and Skye was certainly darker than her appearance had initially let on - he was wholly committing to his practice.

Sometimes the doll-woman cried out like he was pulling harder, making her more than just weak, like it could cause pain. Other times she could speak, begging and bartering through half-gasped breaths, or screaming curses. Still other times she seemed to be near unconsciousness, stilling on the dirty concrete floor before Ailech let her eyes flutter open once again. But regardless of if she growled or gasped, screamed or swore, Ailech wasn't affected, he wasn't even listening really. Instead, he stood over her stonily, waxing and waning the intensity, the ebb and flow of his draw. He wore a tight smile, and with his green eyes looking near black and the way his face was held in cold concentration, he looked a little bit like Malachi.

I could feel the anger rolling from my brother, whether it was his Gift spilling over or just an instinctual sense of rage in the air, it flowed from him like a scent, like blood in water. When he stood, with black eyes shining and pointed teeth, his chest heaving and his chin and throat and shirt soaked with Parker's blood, he wore a red smile. Clearly, there had been history between them. I caught his eye and he flicked his attention to the two Reds frozen in the corner before rocking back onto his heels, holding his hands behind his back and lifting his chin, clearly ready to politely wait for my own victims to be dealt with.

I felt the air stir before I turned my head, but I knew it would be the large one called Boone. He was fast, but I was Irin, an Air, and most importantly, I was furious. I saw his fangs gleam in the low light as he went for my neck as Vampyres so often predictably did. And though memories of Jevin flipped through my mind, his rusted eyes, copper hair, and beautiful features meant to draw in his prey, his dead writhing veins I had filled for so long, his stone-cold skin, the sick taste of his blood, the disconcerting way he watched me without blinking, without breathing, having no need to, none of the memories affected me. None of it mattered anymore, because I had lived through something worse, yet again. I was still living through something worse. So now his ownership, his touch, even straining his poison from me and the madness that had come with it seemed like nothing. I would gladly go through it a thousand times if it meant my Pair would still breathe, if it meant I could see him again in the end.

I saw his eyes then, a flash of the midnight I loved, but not as I remembered them, not full of amused arrogance or burning fire or cold calculation, not even the dull dead eyes when he had hidden his true self from me at the Vault. These eyes were unequivocally his, I would recognize them no matter how they changed, but they were hollow, blank and vacant like his corpse was staring back at me, the eyes frozen open without the mind, the soul or spirit behind them, lighting them. But I didn't feel any slice of sorrow, or the weight of grief and regret, I only felt anger. Rage and violence and pain that needed an equal, that needed to be unleashed pressed down on me.