The Nightshade's Touch: A Paranormal Space Fantasy (Messenger Chronicles Book 3) Read online

  No, not alone.

  Safely inside the pod as it descended to the surface, I touched the wall, spreading my fingers wide, and whispered, “Keep him safe.”

  Night blanketed Hapters’s plains, soaking the burned fields in milky moonlight. My coat took that light and whipped it around me, turning me into a blur, but I still felt exposed as I emerged from the warcruiser’s shadow and jogged across open ground. I had to get in contact with Kellee and let him know Sirius was on the ship, but I’d lost the comms. I needed another way. Something he would see from miles away.

  I slipped back through the salvage yard’s fence and climbed the watchtower. From the top, I could make out the scarring of our crash site and the twin watchtower in the distance, close to where a sinkhole had swallowed Arran. There was no telling which way Kellee had started tracking or if he was within sight. He moved fast when he wanted to. He could be hours away.

  With the flare gun Kellee and I had discovered in hand, I stepped outside the watchtower onto the metal deck. Hapters’s wind tugged at my coat and whipped my hair around my face. Far below, dead tek vessels took on strange, irregular shapes as though they were all enormous creatures rotting away.

  I raised the gun, aiming it into Hapters’s near-dark sky. Kellee had better see it. I only had the one shot.

  I fired. The gun kicked and the flare shot skyward, trailing purple light like a shooting star. Up and up and up it went until it arched over and dove back toward the ground, fizzling to nothing.

  I clutched the rail and waited for my night vision to return. All four corners of the watchtower revealed the same endless plains stretching toward the horizon. The only interruption was the mass of Talen’s warcruiser that, unlit, looked like a mountain that hadn’t been there a few days before.

  “C’mon, Kellee.”

  He wouldn’t ignore the flare. And he couldn’t have missed it. He would come. And together, we’d take Sirius’s ship and save the people right out from under the guardian’s nose. The hunt for the unseelie creature would have to wait.

  Hapters’s moons drifted across the sky, moving the shadows around inside the tower. The link between Talen and me flickered and thrummed, a sign he was alive, just like he had promised. Once Hapters’s people were safe and Sirius was dealt with, I needed to sit that silver fae down and prize answers out of him. It had never occurred to me to ask him if he knew Oberon, but after the way he had talked to Sirius, he had more than a passing knowledge of Oberon’s rule. So many secrets lay between us. His secrets, not mine. I had no more to give. Maybe he and Kellee would trust me if they saw me save Hapters’s people. It might go some way to balancing the scales, tipped a long way down on one side after the slaughter at the Game of Lies.

  The tower shuddered.

  I might not have noticed it had I not been sitting on the floor, tucked in front of the dead control banks. I dropped my hands to the metal flooring and waited, wondering if I’d felt anything at all. Another shudder, this one strong enough to rattle the windows. Distant earthquake? Perhaps the warcruiser was firing up—

  Twisting metal screamed a long, drawn-out sound.

  I shot to my feet and peered through the windows. Shadows layered the hangars far below but nothing moved.

  Something tinny clanged near the entrance to the yard. I homed in on the sound and tried to make sense of the sight below. The fence was gone. No, not gone. Ripped open and shoved aside like someone might yank up weeds and toss them away.

  It had been fine when I’d walked through the doorway a few hours before.

  I left the watchtower and stood against the rail, searching the ground for any sign of what could have warped the fence.

  Nothing.

  Something that big couldn’t hide. Unless…

  I touched the soft fabric of my coat. Fae magic. It could glamour itself.

  It could be right in front of me and I wouldn’t know. Or behind…

  I backed away from the edge. The smell of warm, wet meat drifted on the wind. Reaching for my whip, my heart sank. I’d left it in the pilot’s chamber in my rush to get Talen away from Sirius.

  The tower groaned again, complaining about the weight… The creature was here, climbing higher to get to me.

  I darted inside and scanned the control banks for anything I could use as a weapon. Nothing.

  A window to my left cracked and popped apart, spilling broken glass.

  I couldn’t climb down. I’d fall.

  Trapped.

  A growl bubbled all around me, the sound thick and wet, boiling from the insides of something not meant for this world. Hisses came next, mixed with snarls and huffs and the horrible leathery sound of tentacles lashing and grinding.

  I’d seen this thing bite fae in half.

  I was not fae. Not as fast, not as strong. But I had my coat and some tek-flashers. It would have to do.

  Standing in the center of the watchtower, I spread my stance, dropped my hands, and pulled the coat’s magic around me, hiding in plain sight. My heart thudded too damn loudly, hammering through my ribs. That creature would surely hear it, and if it was anything like Kellee, it could probably smell my fear. I couldn’t hide forever.

  The walls stilled. Rattling glass fell silent. Moonlight poured in through broken windows, washing across the floor and catching tiny glass shards. And I waited.

  I’m not done yet.

  Talen’s magic tingled on my fingertips and traced down my spine, both sharp and smooth. The creature probably sensed that too.

  Snarls simmered right outside the door. Air quivered in the doorway. Saw-like panting moved closer. It was here, so close, but virtually invisible.

  Cold sweat broke out across my skin. The thing snuffled closer, cracking and warping the doorframe around its bulk.

  Sickening moist breath blasted my face and the hissing snarls rolled over and over… forming words?

  “Niiiight… sssshhhhade.” The words dripped like poison from its invisible lips.

  The air rippled and the unseelie’s glamour peeled apart, falling off wrinkled, furred skin. A beast-like head emerged. Red eyes blazed—intelligence sparkling. Teeth glinted inches from my face. It could kill me in one clean bite. But these things, these creatures, they were not dumb animals. Unseelie. The intelligence in its eyes was real. It saw me, but did it know me?

  I opened myself to Talen’s touch and let his golden light wash over me. The power, like the fae it belonged to, was alien, but so right. Light blasted outward from my body, and the creature reared back, smashing its head through the ceiling. Debris rained down. It roared and clawed the air blindly. I sprang back, but its claws snagged my thigh, catching and digging in before tearing out again.

  The wound burned. I clamped a hand around it and hobbled backward. “You want me?”

  Power danced up my back, snaking like a whip, and sank its own claws into my flesh. It didn’t hurt, but it was too much, too soon, too different, and briefly, I struggled to see past the light.

  The creature landed on all fours with a thunderous boom, yanking my focus back to it. It hunched low, half-moon teeth bared. Its eyes glowed, fiery and eternal.

  “Come and get me,” I beckoned, backing onto the deck.

  It sprang. I saw the rippling muscles bunch and release, saw the claws spread, its maw open, and lips peel back. The doorway I’d backed through exploded around it, and in that fraction of a delay, I lunged sideways. The creature howled as its weight carried it forward, through the rail, and over the side. Its howl rang out as it fell. More than sound, it touched my blood, my soul. And then it came to an abrupt, silent end.

  Its hulking shape lay on the ground far below.

  I stared down at it, Talen’s magic withdrawing until I was sure the creature wouldn’t spring back to life, and then I pulled myself back into the tower to wait for Kellee.

  Chapter 11

  Kellee whistled low at the stinking carcass of something that looked, in daylight, as though Faerie had chewed up a bu
nch of its freakish creatures and vomited them back up.

  “Well, we know one thing,” he said, smirking up at the tower and back at me. “They sure can’t fly.”

  He had arrived shortly after daybreak to find me sitting on a drum of spare tek parts far enough away from the carcass that its stench didn’t have my eyes streaming.

  Kellee used a boot to prod its back. Muscle and skin wobbled. He screwed up his nose, then shielded his eyes to look at the tower again. The claw marks scaling the sides and smashed windows told the story better than I could. “You all right?”

  “Uh-huh.” I got to my feet and brushed off bits of dirt and glass. “We need to get moving.”

  Kellee’s gaze snagged on the gash across my thigh, where the creature’s claws had caught me. Dried blood darkened the frayed edges. “You sure?”

  “It’s fine. C’mon…” I started for the mangled gap in the fence. “Talen is keeping Sirius busy on the warcruiser. We need to get to the community and Sirius’s ship, while we have an opening.” I was outside the perimeter fence by the time I realized Kellee wasn’t behind me.

  He stood beside the dead creature, his gaze skipping from its claws to its pearly fangs. All things that looked eerily familiar, only bigger.

  “Marshal!” I barked, jolting him out of his thoughts.

  He jogged to my side and we strode across the dusty plains in silence, the morning light beating down hard. Kellee queried me about Sirius’s arrival on the warcruiser and I told him everything. We had been walking for what felt like an hour, much of it spent in silence, until the plains turned into scorched fields. Ash stirred and settled as we passed. “I think the fae buried that creature here. Time, our prison. It’s a warning and it’s plural. There might be more than one.”

  Kellee’s eyes darted along the horizon, always scanning for threats. He’d gained a dark shadow of whiskers over the past few days. The ponytail had lost most of its hold and hung loose, while the rest of his mop of dark hair brushed his jawline. The heat had curled his hair in places and the breeze teased messy bangs across his eyes, forcing him to run his fingers through it and sweep it back. “You’re right.”

  “You know for certain?”

  “No. But what other explanation is there?”

  “You tell me. You’ve been here before.”

  He pinched his lips together and hid his grimace by rubbing perspiration and dust from his face. “Not for that…”

  “Then why?”

  His eyes were on the horizon again. Maybe he wasn’t looking for threats, but something else. “Hapters was my home a long time ago. I had a family. We farmed. It was… They were good times.”

  I stopped dead in my tracks and in a few strides, Kellee stopped too. He hesitated, knowing the questions were coming, and reluctantly turned to face me, his expression tired.

  “You’re a farmer?”

  Old sorrow clouded his eyes. “Was.”

  I started walking again and let him fall into step beside me. Kellee was old. Old in the same way the fae were old. When you live that long, things change, people die, loved ones too. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not. The years I spent here were some of the better ones.”

  Kellee. With a family. Absurdly, I readily imagined it. He would make a good provider. A good father. Stern, but true. Honest. Proud. But he had survived and they hadn’t. What a terrible curse to carry, to watch those around you eventually die. Friends, lovers, family—all of them gone, and any new friends would eventually pass too, leaving you forever alone in the world.

  I had always envied the fae their immortality, and perhaps on Faerie it was a blessing, but not in Halow. Kellee once told me how everything around him had changed and he no longer belonged. I had thought I understood, but I hadn’t, not until now.

  After a few hours of walking at a solid pace, we came to a rocky outcrop. Kellee handed me a flask of water. His pace had been relentless, and he didn’t show any signs of fatigue other than wilting a little under the heat. I’d kept up—barely. Sitting on a rock, I took a few swigs of water, grateful for the respite, but Talen was with Sirius and each minute was another chance for the guardian to get a message back to his flight.

  Kellee stood watch, ramrod straight and virtually motionless. He looked into the sun, and the light lent his face a bronze glow, accentuating the sweep of dark eyebrows and darker lashes. He was remarkable to look at.

  “It said something to me,” I said.

  He looked down at me on the rock, frowning. “The creature spoke?”

  I shielded my eyes from the harsh light. “It made a lot of noises, but it definitely said night shade. Does that mean anything to you?”

  His brow pinched. “Nightshade?”

  He knew something. But would he tell me? I handed out the flask, making him come closer. He grabbed it, but when I didn’t let go, his dark eyes flicked up.

  “Tell me,” I pushed.

  “We’re assuming it wasn’t referring to the plant?” He tried on his cocky smirk like he could distract me with all that pretty. It was a cheap trick that had never worked on me.

  “Don’t vague-answer me, Marshal. You and Talen think you can feed me just enough karushit to string me along, like I’m a naive saru who’ll believe anything. I killed that thing back there. It said Nightshade. You owe me an answer.”

  “I owe you now?”

  If he brought up the whole I work for Oberon and lied about it issue again, he might find his flask shoved somewhere painful.

  He breathed in and held it long enough to give him time to think of a suitably vague answer. “The nightshade is an unseelie myth.”

  I released the flask. He hooked it onto his belt, against his back, and squinted into the sun. The light caught the greens in his eyes, sparking them alight. “They used the name to identify an unseelie ruler, something all-powerful. It was supposed to save them all in a war to end all wars. Clearly, it never did, because the unseelie are gone, and as far as the myth says, nobody could organize them when Oberon and the queen wiped out the unseelie for good. I don’t know whether the nightshade was real or a fairytale. Maybe Oberon knows. You should ask him.”

  I smiled up at my last vakaru and his attempt to distract me, yet again, from the facts by dragging my past into the conversation. He was angling to get a rise out of me, and he wouldn’t get it.

  He was right though. The unseelie were all gone from Faerie. Like the vakaru were gone. All but one. “I’ve never heard of it.”

  “A saru wouldn’t have. Unseelie myths are forbidden tales. Somewhere in history it became bad luck to say the word unseelie. Younglings believed the Hunt would snatch you away for uttering it. Oberon would have his people believe the unseelie didn’t exist.” The fire in Kellee’s eyes dulled. “He likes his Faerie pretty.”

  “Then how do you know about them, Marshal?”

  The corner of his mouth twitched. “I’ve had a long time to collect fairytales.”

  Because you are one…? “Do you think that thing I killed was the nightshade?”

  “No.” He swallowed. “That thing was a pest.”

  If that was just a pest, what were the more powerful unseelie like? “If it’s a myth, why did it say nightshade and why to me?”

  Kellee’s expression stiffened, becoming guarded. Question time was over. “C’mon. A lot of folks are waiting on the Messenger.”

  I admired the deadly elegance in the way he walked away and considered how he could summon claws and fangs and how his blood was poison. I remembered how he had fucked a fae general unconscious. Marshal Kellee was undoubtedly unseelie. A monster wearing pretty camouflage. But he didn’t think like one, did he? Nerves churned my gut into knots. I had never feared him. Through everything, I had trusted his sense of honor, but the beast could override that. It almost had when he’d tasted my blood. He would have hurt me had Talen not stepped in.

  I was playing with fire by inviting a monster into my heart. But Kellee’s good outweighed any bad
. I had witnessed that myself, time and time again.

  I brushed dust from my hands, accidentally snagging my finger on the tear in my thigh. The fabric tore. I cursed the loss of yet another set of clothes and got to my feet, feeling remarkably rested considering my showdown with the creature. Kellee marched on, a gray and black smudge in the heat haze. While he wasn’t looking, I poked my fingers into the slits across my thigh and brushed the smooth skin beneath, looking for the cut. I jabbed around some more, searching for scabs.

  There weren’t any. But it had cut me. I’d felt the claws slice me open, felt the burn. The blood around the tear was mine. Hours later, the wound was gone.

  “Keep up, Kesh,” Kellee hollered.

  I hurried after the marshal, my thoughts slipping away as fast as my grasp on what I knew for sure.

  Arran’s broad grin at the sight of Kellee and I was almost enough to settle my rattling nerves. Sota whooshed in, scanned me with his all-seeing eye, and grumbled a string of Calicto sink words that had Kellee lifting an eyebrow. I waved Sota off, knowing the questions would come later.

  “I didn’t think I’d see either of you for a few days. What happened?” Arran asked, keeping his voice low.

  We sheltered behind the mound of spoils dug out from the escape tunnel—the same place Kellee and I had first seen Sirius emerge from the warship. The ship in question still sat outside the colony, its miniature-cruiser appearance shimmering under Hapters’s ever-changing light. Hulia was in there. Was she entertaining the fae as all namu were supposed to?

  “Plans have changed,” Kellee whispered back. He peered over the top of the rocks.

  Arran noted the cut across my thigh but knew better than to ask. I’d walked in on it so nothing needed to be done. He took up a spot against the rocks beside Kellee.

  “Talen has Sirius distracted.” I crouched behind them. “Now’s our chance to get in there.”